Mira

Named by the astronomer Johannes Hevelius in 1662, from Latin mīrus (“wonderful, surprising”).

Mira

1. (astronomy) A binary star in the constellation Cetus, Omicron (ο) Ceti. The system contains a variable red giant and a white dwarf. Its brightness varies from a magnitude 2 at its brightest to a magnitude 10 at its dimmest.

   Synonym: Omicron Ceti

   Hypernym: binary star

   • 2008, Helge Kragh, The Moon that Wasn't: The Saga of Venus' Spurious Satellite, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 80:

     The favoured explanation, adopted by Maraldi, was based on the assumption that the star was rotating and composed of two different parts, a bright and a dark region; if so, it might only be visible when the bright region turned towards Earth. Whatever the explanation, Mira had puzzled the astronomers because of its random character and the irregular periods between its observations.

• Borrowed from Hindi मीरा (mīrā), name of a 16th century Indian poetess, also affectionately called Mirabai.
• As occasionally borne by anglophones in the West, the name may also be borrowed from Slavic, or be a short form of Miranda.

Mira

1. Mirabai, a 16th-century Indian poetess.
2. (by extension) A female given name from India.
   • 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Penguin Books, published 1977, →ISBN, page 366:

     Dorothy's daughters were of exceptional beauty and the sisters could complain only that the Hindi names Dorothy had chosen - Mira, Leela, Lena - were meant to pass as Western ones.

•   Mira on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
•   Mira (given name) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Rima, raim, rami, AMIR, Mari, Amir, RIMA, Irma, amir, mair, rima, Rami, RAIM, Mair

Mira f

1. a female given name

Matronymics

• son of Mira: Miruson
• daughter of Mira: Mirudóttir

A 20th century invention, borrowed from the Slavic diminutive of female names containing the element *mirъ (“peace”); also explained as a short form of Mirjam, or derived from the Latin name of the star.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmirɑ/, [ˈmirɑ̝]
• Rhymes: -irɑ
• Hyphenation^(key): Mi‧ra

Mira

1. a female given name, popular from the 1970s to the 1990s
2. (astronomy) Mira.

• Mira is the 112^th most common female given name in Finland, belonging to 7,082 female individuals (and as a middle name to 664 more), and also belongs to 6 male individuals, according to February 2023 data from the Digital and Population Data Services Agency of Finland.

• Armi, Irma, Mari, Rami, armi, mari, rami, rima

Mira m (proper noun, strong, genitive Miras)

1. (astronomy) Mira
   • 2007 August 16, “Wundersamer Sprinter im All entdeckt”, in Der Spiegel‎^[1]:

     Astronomen haben an dem schon seit 400 Jahren bekannten Stern Mira eine überraschende Entdeckung gemacht: Der Himmelskörper im Sternbild Walfisch zieht einen kometenartigen Schweif hinter sich her. Er ist mit 13 Lichtjahren mehrere tausend Mal so lang wie unser Sonnensystem. Eine solche Beobachtung sei bisher noch nie gelungen, schreibt das Team um Mark Seibert von der Carnegie Institution im Fachblatt "Nature".

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Mira f (proper noun, genitive Miras or Mira, plural Miras)

1. a female given name

•   Mira (Stern) on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de
•   Mira (Vorname) on the German Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^de

Mira f

1. A village in Venice, Veneto

• armi, mari, rami, rima

 

Polish Wikipedia has an article on:

Mira

Wikipedia ^pl

• IPA^(key): /ˈmi.ra/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ira
• Syllabification: Mi‧ra
• Homophone: mira

Clipping of Mirosława.

Mira f

1. a female given name, equivalent to English Mira

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Mira m pers

1. a male surname

Mira f

1. a female surname

• Mira in Polish dictionaries at PWN
• “Mira”, in Internetowy słownik nazwisk w Polsce [Internet dictionary of surnames in Poland], 2022

From Old Galician-Portuguese *Mira, from Celtiberian *mira, from Proto-Celtic *mori (“sea”).

• Audio (Portugal):

  (file)

• Homophone: mira
• Hyphenation: Mi‧ra

Mira f

1. A village, parish, and municipality of the district of Coimbra, Portugal

• Praia de Mira
• mirense

Mira m

1. Mira (a river in Alentejo, Portugal)

• Odemira

A hypocoristic form of Mìrjana, Mìrjam

• IPA^(key): /mǐːra/

Míra f (Cyrillic spelling Ми́ра)

1. a female given name

• “Mira”, in Portal suvremenih hrvatskih osobnih imena [Portal of contemporary Croatian personal names] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2018–2024

• Audio:

  (file)

Mira

1. a male given name, equivalent to English Casimir