What does "puppis" mean?

A winter constellation of the northern sky, said to resemble the stern of a ship. Until 1763, it was part of a larger constellation, Argo Navis.

Puppis

name

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Proper Noun

1
A winter constellation of the northern sky, said to resemble the stern of a ship. Until 1763, it was part of a larger constellation, Argo Navis.

Named by the French astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille in 1763. From Latin puppis (“stern of a ship”). Doublet of poop.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.