LIGHT-YEARS Synonyms: 12 Similar and Opposite Words

light-years

noun

plural of light-year

as in worlds

a huge physical or conceptual distance my sister and I are close in age, but personality-wise, there are light-years between us

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of light-years The exoplanet orbits the star HD 176071 located around 335 light-years away, and is about two and a half times the size of Earth, but has about eight and a half times the mass of our planet. — Robert Lea, Space.com, 26 Aug. 2026 The park feels light-years away from the closest major airport, Midland (235 miles away), and this seclusion ensures the park’s night views stay dazzling. — Stephanie Vermillion, Travel + Leisure, 23 Aug. 2026 Its host star is a dim bulb of a red dwarf about 49 light-years from our sun. — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 21 Aug. 2026 Millions of light-years away, but because of that black thing Brit had come riding up the hill at dusk. — Literary Hub, 19 Aug. 2026 The enormous columns of gas and dust sit inside the Eagle Nebula, about 6,500 light-years away, and stretch roughly five light-years. — Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 15 Aug. 2026 The celestial phenomenon, located in a galaxy roughly 115 million light-years from Earth, is the remnant of a dense ball of stars being slowly pulled apart by the gravity of its host galaxy. — Taylor Nicioli, CNN Money, 13 Aug. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for light-years

Noun

For the next 90 days, NASA teams will ready the Roman telescope for its five-year mission to study enigmatic phenomena like dark matter while hunting for habitable worlds beyond our solar system.

— Eric Lagatta, USA Today, 31 Aug. 2026
Observations with Roman’s coronagraph could unveil Jupiter-like planets around nearby stars and will guide the development of NASA’s Habitable Worlds Observatory, which will target smaller, more Earth-like worlds.

— Lee Billings, Scientific American, 31 Aug. 2026

Definition of worlds

Noun

There are, by various estimates, several trillion planets within what is known as the Local Group of galaxies—our closest galaxy neighbors, including our own Milky Way.

— Eric Berger, ArsTechnica, 1 Sep. 2026
Rogue stars could be the answer The key to this mystery could lie in the fact that most stars don't orbit the centers of their galaxies where supermassive black holes dwell alone, instead existing in binary partnerships.

— Robert Lea, Space.com, 1 Sep. 2026

Definition of galaxies

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light-year

light-years

likability

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“Light-years.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/light-years. Accessed 5 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of light-years

noun

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