Why “siderealize” is a great word
SIDEREALIZE — [Verb] To make into a star, or like a star; to elevate as if to the level of the stars or heavens. From the English adjective 'sidereal' (from Latin sīdereus, "of the constellations or stars," from sīdus, "star, constellation") + the verb-forming suffix '-ize' (from Greek -ίζειν, -izein). Unlike "stellify," which implies a literal, mythological transformation into a stellar body, or "deify," which bestows divine power and invites worship, to siderealize is to confer a distant, celestial luster—a cold and magnificent remove. It is the biographer polishing a flawed life into a mythic constellation, the nation turning a fallen soldier into a fixed point of navigation, or the lover preserving a memory until it becomes an untouchable point of light. We siderealize what we can no longer hold, so that we may still navigate by its glow.