acontias

Latin noun
loaned from Greek

Last edited: 2025-10-07
Primary meaning "dart" comet
Literal translation darting
Variants
acontias
Edited by
"dart" comet celestial phenomenon

acontiae iaculi modo vibrantur, atrocissimo significatu;

‘‘Javelin-star’ quiver like a dart; these are a very terrible portent.’

— Pliny, Natural History 2.89

Genre: encyclopedia
Provenance: Rome
Date: 77-79 CE

Pliny. Natural History, Volume I: Books 1-2. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 330. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938.

Cite this entry
APA (7th)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). acontias (Lemma #6061). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6061/
Chicago (Author-Date)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). acontias (Lemma #6061). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6061/
MLA (9th)
Meinhardt, K. (2025). acontias (Lemma #6061). The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6061/
Harvard
Meinhardt, K. (2025) acontias (Lemma #6061), The ZODIAC Glossary: A Cross-Cultural Glossary of Ancient Astral Science. Available at: https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6061/ (Accessed: February 2, 2026).
BibTeX 
@misc{zodiac6061,
	note = {[Online; accessed 2026-02-02]},
	author = {Meinhardt, Kierán},
	year = {2025},
	title = {acontias ({Lemma} #6061)},
	url = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6061/},
	howpublished = {https://zodiacglossary.github.io/lemma/6061/},
}