a. [f. COMET or L. comēta + -ARY, after planetary, in late L. planētārius. Cf. F. cométaire.]
1. Of or pertaining to a comet or comets.
1652. Gaule, Magastrom., 79. The prodigious aspects in the heavens (planetary, as well as cometary).
1748. Hartley, Observ. Man, II. iv. 400. Revolutions either in a planetary or a cometary Orbit.
1787. Smeaton, in Phil. Trans., LXXVII. 319, note. A similar instrument to be made for cometary … observations.
1853. Herschel, Pop. Lect. Sc., ii. § 42. (1873), 126. Few persons at all acquainted with cometary history.
2. Of the nature of a comet: comet-like.
1847. De Quincey, Wks. (1862), VII. 53. Their [coaches’] periods of revolution were so cometary and uncertain.
1869. Phillips, Vesuv., iii. 85. Cometary or star-like meteors.
1873. E. Dowden, in Contemp. Rev., July, 176. This cometary apparition … where lies its nucleus? and is its orbit ascertainable? What is Victor Hugo?
