"rock or metallic mass of extraterrestrial origin that falls to earth after streaking across the sky as a meteor," 1818, from meteor + -ite. They were known from ancient times, but the idea that some such iron masses or rocks had fallen to earth from the sky attained credence among scientists c. 1800.
"an upper chamber," c. 1300, an extended sense from late Old English loft "the sky; the sphere of the air," from Old Norse lopt (Scandinavian -pt- pronounced like -ft-) "air, sky," originally "upper story, loft, attic," from Proto-Germanic *luftuz "air, sky" (source also of Old English lyft, Dutch lucht, Old High German luft, German Luft, Gothic luftus "air").
If this is correct, the sense development would be from "loft, ceiling" to "sky, air." Buck suggests a further connection with Old High German louft "bark," louba "roof, attic," etc., with development from "bark" to "roof made of bark" to "ceiling," though this did not directly inform the meaning "air, sky" (compare lodge (n.)). But Watkins says this is "probably a separate Germanic root." Meaning "gallery in a church" first attested c. 1500. From 1520s as "apartment over a stable" used for hay storage, etc.
fem. proper name, from French céleste (11c.) "sky, heaven," from Latin caelestis "heavenly" (see celestial).
also Juppiter, c. 1200, "supreme deity of the ancient Romans," from Latin Iupeter, Iupiter, Iuppiter, "Jove, god of the sky and chief of the gods," from PIE *dyeu-peter- "god-father" (originally vocative, "the name naturally occurring most frequently in invocations" [Tucker]), from *deiw-os "god" (from root *dyeu- "to shine," in derivatives "sky, heaven, god") + peter "father" in the sense of "male head of a household" (see father (n.)).
The Latin forms Diespiter, Dispiter ... together with the word dies 'day' point to the generalization of a stem *dije-, whereas Iupiter, Iovis reflect [Proto-Italic] *djow~. These can be derived from a single PIE paradigm for '(god of the) sky, day-light', which phonetically split in two in [Proto-Italic] and yielded two new stems with semantic specialization. [de Vaan]
Compare Greek Zeu pater, vocative of Zeus pater "Father Zeus;" Sanskrit Dyaus pitar "heavenly father." As the name of the brightest of the superior planets from late 13c. in English, from Latin (Iovis stella). The Latin word also meant "heaven, sky, air," hence sub Iove "in the open air." As god of the sky he was considered to be the originator of weather, hence Jupiter Pluvius "Jupiter as dispenser of rain" 1704), in jocular use from mid-19c.
Roman god of the bright sky, also a poetical name of the planet Jupiter, late 14c., from Latin Iovis, from PIE root *dyeu- "to shine," in derivatives "sky, heaven, god" (compare Zeus). In classical Latin, the compound Iuppiter replaced Old Latin Iovis as the god's name (see Jupiter). Old English had it as Iob.
"gleam of sunlight," 1650s, probably from a Scandinavian dialectal word; compare Swedish dialectal glena, Danish dialectal glene "clear patch of sky."
"sky" (poetic), Old English wolcen "cloud," also "sky, heavens," from Proto-Germanic *wulk- (source also of Old Saxon wolkan, Old Frisian wolken, Middle Dutch wolke, Dutch wolk, Old High German wolka, German Wolke "cloud"), perhaps from PIE *welg- "wet" (source also of Lithuanian vilgyti "to moisten," Old Church Slavonic vlaga "moisture," Czech vlhky "damp"); but Boutkan rejects this and finds no good IE etymology.
