means A massive luminous ball of plasma held together by gravity, burning bright enough to be seen across light-years — or, by extension, anyone or anything that shines above the rest.

from From Old English 'steorra,' part of a vast family of star-words across the Indo-European world: Latin 'stella,' Greek 'aster' (which gives us 'asteroid' and 'astronomy'), German 'Stern.' All seem to trace back to a reconstructed root '*ster-,' meaning 'star' — one of those ancient words humans carried with them as they spread, looking up at the same scattered lights and naming them in a thousand daughter tongues.