comet-likeadv.adj.

1594 M. Drayton Ideas Mirrour sig. E. My most meruaile was when from the skyes, So Comet-like each starre aduaunc'd her lyght.

1656 J. Collop Poesis Rediviva Ep. Ded. sig. A4 Those Magnifico's, who Comet-like sprung from fat and slime of earth, blaze and become portentous to Kingdoms.

1686 J. Goad Astro-meteorologica i. ix. 36 ♃ and ♀ are bright, and flaming Comet-like, neer to sparkling and Scintillation.

1724 W. Warburton Misc. Transl. 107 When, Comet like, his dreadful Blade he wav'd, Before its Lightning slew the blasted Foe.

1802 T. Gale Electricity i. 29 They first gravitate towards the candle, or artificial sun, and will approach, comet-like, within just such a distance, and are then repelled.

1871 Ann. Reg. 1870 Foreign Hist. 126 Those incidents which strike, comet-like, across the path of ordinary political evolutions, which no prevision could have anticipated, and whose results are incalculable.

1938 Minnesota: State Guide (Federal Writers' Project) ii. 249 The fiery mass, speeding comet-like down the hill, hit the retaining wall hurling the iron roof of the car across Superior Street.

2005 J. Bruning Ship Strike Pacific vi. 62/1 Comet-like, [the plane]..streaked straight for the Pensacola, flaming debris trailing in its wake.

1621 W. Slatyer Hist. Great Britanie Table sig. Dd3/1 Wolsey, a Cardinall, his Comet-like blazing.

1787 W. Nicholson Introd. Nat. Philos. (ed. 2) I. ii. i. ix. 303 For the two comet-like streams seem to be produced, the one by an attractive power exerted, by which the light is thrown into the shadow of the knife, and the other by a repulsion.

1825 T. Moore Mem. Life R. B. Sheridan II. xiv. 169 The French Revolution still continued, by its comet-like course, to dazzle, alarm, and disturb all Europe.

1863 List New Nebulæ & Star-clusters (Harvard Coll. Observatory) 4 A very faint comet-like nebula, seen Sept. 1st, 1852, with the Great Refractor, by G. P. Bond.

1923 Galveston (Texas) Daily News 25 Nov. 16/1 The most a sane man can figure would be a decillion, which has a cometlike tail of ciphers trailing behind.

2013 D. K. Yeomans Near-Earth Objects 20 The Kuiper belt, a relatively flattened distribution of comet-like bodies, is located beyond the orbit of..Neptune.