Q: Why a “meteoric rise”? Meteors crash down on Earth.
A: The use of “meteoric” for something that rises may seem counterintuitive, but the adjective has been used that way for more than a century and a half, and the usage is standard English.
In fact, the usage ultimately comes from ancient Greek, where μετέωρος (meteoros), the source of “meteor” and “meteoric,” means raised or aloft.
Standard dictionaries define “meteoric” as relating to meteors or resembling them in speed or brilliance. All eight standard dictionaries we regularly consult use the phrase “meteoric rise” in their examples for the “speedy” sense.
Here are some examples: “a meteoric rise to fame” (Merriam-Webster, American Heritage): “His meteoric rise to stardom” (Webster’s New World); “her meteoric rise from dancer to professional actress” (Longman); “his meteoric rise in politics” (Dictionary.com), and “The group had a meteoric rise to fame in the 1990s” (Cambridge).
When “meteoric” first appeared in the early 17th century, it meant “relating to, or consisting of elements of, both the earth and the heavens,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The only OED citation for this obsolete sense is from a letter by John Donne to a friend, Sir Henry Goodyer, believed written in 1612:
“Our nature is Meteorique, we respect (because we partake so) both earth and heaven” (from Letters to Severall Persons of Honour Written by John Donne, Sometime Deane of St Pauls, 1651).
In the late 18th century, the dictionary says, “meteoric” started being used in referring to meteors or meteorites. It cites a satirical column in the Pennsylvania Gazette, Jan. 26, 1785, that compares current events to “a fiery ball” in the sky, then asks readers to pardon “this meteoric digression.”
In the late 18th or early 19th century, according to OED citations, “meteoric” began being used figuratively to mean “flashing or dazzling like a meteor, transiently or irregularly brilliant; rapid, swift; appearing suddenly.”
The first Oxford citation for the flashing sense is from “Cheerfulness,” an ode by the Irish poet Thomas Dermody, written sometime before his death in 1802: “His godlike hair, of braided rays, / His vest, a meteoric blaze” (from The Harp of Erin, Containing the Poetical Works of the Late T. Dermody, Vol. II, 1807).
The dictionary’s earliest citation for the speedy sense is from the Daily Chronicle (London), Jan. 16, 1895: “We had occasion to undertake a somewhat meteoric flight from Balmoral.”
However, we’ve found a much earlier example that includes the phrase “meteoric rise.” It compares the suddenness of Byron’s success as a poet to the “meteoric rise” of Napoleon:
“He called himself, in one of his poems, ‘the grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme;’ and there is some similarity between the suddenness and splendour of his literary career and the meteoric rise and domination of the First Buonaparte” (from The Student’s Manual of English Literature: A History of English Literature, 1864, by Thomas B. Shaw).
The phrase “meteoric rise” is much more common than “meteoric fall,” according to Google’s Ngram viewer, but the falling usage does appear once in a while, as in this example about the decline of the moth Alabama argillacea:
“Ode to Alabama: The Meteoric Fall of a Once Extraordinarily Abundant Moth” (the headline on an article by David L. Wagner in American Entomologist, July 1, 2009).
Help support the Grammarphobia Blog with your donation. And check out our books about the English language and more.