Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Charm or attractiveness that stems from celebrity and tends to forestall criticism.
  • noun A dreamlike, romantic, or uncritical sense of well-being.
  • noun Dust formed in very hot gasses ejected from stellar atmospheres or in supernova explosions.
  • noun A cluster of stars too distant to be seen individually, resembling a dimly luminous cloud of dust. Not in scientific use.
  • noun Minute particles of matter that fall to Earth from the stars. Not in scientific use.
  • idiom (have stardust in (one's) eyes) To be uncritically or unrealistically optimistic.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Particles of matter that fall from the stars down to Earth; often used idiomatically to suggest a fanciful or dreamlike quality.
  • noun informal, dated, astronomy A distant cluster of stars, resembling a cloud, the individual stars of which cannot be resolved.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a dreamy romantic or sentimental quality

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

star +‎ dust.

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Examples

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  • Bat Masterson was a Western television series which showed a fictionalized account of the life of real-life marshal/gambler/dandy Bat Masterson. The title character was played by Gene Barry. His horse was Stardust.

    February 1, 2008

  • Ooh, we had Bat Masterson in Ireland when I was growing up. It used to be on Wednesday nights, after 'Petticoat Junction'. The Virginian was on Friday nights, right after 'Katie the Farmer's Daughter'.

    February 1, 2008