The Collaborative International Dictionary
Asteroid \As"ter*oid\, n. [Gr. ? starlike, starry; 'asth`r star + e'i^dos form: cf. F. ast['e]ro["i]de. See Aster.] A starlike body; esp. one of the numerous small planets whose orbits lie between those of Mars and Jupiter; -- called also planetoids and minor planets.
Wiktionary
n. (minor planet English)
Usage examples of "minor planets".
There are several highly ordered and clearly artificial asteroid belts of minor planets—.
Sometimes called minor planets or asteroids, they are more likely to be inactive comets (with no tails, of course.
The later one was hastily withdrawn from Alyx, his report was suppressed, and he was assigned permanently to one of the minor planets of the Taurine group.
How does the United States dare to prepare to bombard Tosev 3 from the belt of minor planets between Tosev 4 and Tosev 5?
That had been the heady part, especially with Mirrim presentshowing off the observatory and bringing up images of the minor planets above the horizon.
She looked the type to have a gun under the counter, and more security people on call than some minor planets.
This was the case with Mars, Venus, and that unknown orb which was moving in the orbit of the minor planets.
Over a hundred and fifty years of exploration, over seventy years of commercial exploitation of the Minor Planets, and still no human being had passed beyond the magic ring of the Planetoids.
Forty, seventy, one hundred and one hundred-forty millions of miles are the orbits of the Minor Planets.
That had been the heady part, especially with Mirrim present-showing off the observatory and bringing up images of the minor planets above the horizon.