astronaut
/ˈæstɹəˌnɔt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.60 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A member of the crew of a spaceship or other spacecraft that travels beyond Earth's atmosphere, or someone trained to serve that purpose.
Example Sentences
- "Though from different social, economic, and political worlds, the astronauts and cosmonauts had much in common, both as professionals and human beings."
- "The American astronauts in the competing Mercury program may have joked about being “Spam in a can,” but it seems clear that Korolev wanted to have plenty of cosmonauts on hand in case another rocket blew up."
- "Longtime NASA astronaut Don Pettit, who has ventured to space four times, returned to Earth on Saturday night from the International Space Station. Pettit, who turned 70 on Sunday, landed at 9:20 p.m. ET in a Soyuz spacecraft with Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner near Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, after a seven-month stay aboard the orbiting laboratory. […] Space doesn't just appear dark to astronauts aboard the space station."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: ἄστρον
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈæstɹəˌnɔt/
- British English: /ˈæstɹəˌnɔːt/