Meaning & use
star sign
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountable
One of the twelve groups of stars that astrology links to a person's birth date and character.
Grammar: Countable: you can say 'a star sign', 'my star sign' or 'the twelve star signs'.
Patterns
- someone's star sign
- What is your star sign?
- the star sign for March
She asked me what my star sign was, and I had to think for a moment.
If you were born in late July, your star sign is Leo.
Many newspapers print a short paragraph for each star sign.
Word forms
| plural | star signs |
|---|
Common combinations
- What's your star sign?
- What's your star sign? Mine's Pisces.
- someone's star sign
- He doesn't believe your star sign says anything about your personality.
- check your star sign
- She checks her star sign in the paper every morning.
- the twelve star signs
- The twelve star signs each cover about a month.
Synonyms and how they differ
- sign
- Shorter and very common in American English; it means the same thing but can also mean other kinds of sign, so the context must make astrology clear.
- zodiac sign
- More formal and more exact; it is the best choice in writing about astrology.
Word family
Commonly confused: star sign or sign?
star sign vs sign
A 'sign' can be a notice, a signal or a mark, so 'What's your sign?' is clear only in a conversation about astrology.
Practice
If you were born on 5 August, what is your star sign?
Choose one answer.
Names of star signs work like proper nouns, so we say 'your star sign is Leo' with no article. 'A Leo' would describe a person ('She's a Leo'), and 'the Leo' is not used for this meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “star sign”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.