comet

comet
\ \ [13] Comet means literally ‘the longhaired one’. Greek kómē meant ‘hair’, but it was also applied metaphorically to the tail of a comet, which was thought of as streaming out behind like a luxuriant head of hair being blown by the wind. Hence an astēr kométēs ‘longhaired star’ was the name given to a comet.
\ \ Eventually the adjective kométēs came to stand for the whole phrase, and it passed via Latin comēta and Old French comete into English.

Word origins - 2ed. . 2005.

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