Astronaut

//ˈæstɹəˌnɔːt// noun

noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A member of the crew of a spaceship or other spacecraft that travels beyond Earth's atmosphere, or someone trained to serve that purpose.
  2. 2
    a person trained to travel in a spacecraft wordnet
  3. 3
    A member of the crew of a spaceship or other spacecraft that travels beyond Earth's atmosphere, or someone trained to serve that purpose.; An American space traveler, when contrasted against equivalent terms from other countries such as cosmonaut, taikonaut, spationaut, and vyomanaut.

    "Though from different social, economic, and political worlds, the astronauts and cosmonauts had much in common, both as professionals and human beings."

  4. 4
    A person (typically man) working abroad away from their family. Hong-Kong

Synonyms

All synonyms
cosmonautcosmonautadventureraeronautaeroplaneraeroplanist

Example

More examples

"The astronaut was slow to get used to the condition of weightlessness."

Etymology

From astro- + -naut. Coined from Ancient Greek ἄστρον (ástron, “star”) and ναύτης (naútēs, “sailor”).

Related phrases

ancient astronautastronaut ice creamastronaut maneuvering unitastronaut propulsion unitpara-astronauthong kong

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