Word History: Comets have been feared throughout much of human history, and even in our own time their goings and comings receive great attention. Perhaps a comet might seem less awesome if we realized that our name for it is based on a figurative resemblance between it and humans. This figurative name is recorded first in the works of Aristotle, in which he uses komē, the Greek word for "hair of the head," to mean "luminous tail of a comet." Aristotle then uses the derived word komētēs, "wearing long hair," as a noun meaning "comet." The Greek word was adopted into Latin as comētēs, which was refashioned in Late Latin and given the form comēta, furnishing Old English with comēta, the earliest English ancestor of our word comet.