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Altair

American  
[al-tair, -tahyuhr, al-tair, -tahyuhr] / ˈæl tɛər, -taɪər, ælˈtɛər, -ˈtaɪər /

noun

  1. a first-magnitude star in the constellation Aquila.

Altair British  
/ ˈæltɛə /

noun

  1. the brightest star in the constellation Aquila. Visual magnitude: 0.77; spectral type: A7V; distance: 16.8 light years

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Altair Scientific  
/ ăl-târ′,-tīr′ /

  1. A bright white star in the constellation Aquila. Altair is a main-sequence star in the Hertzprung-Russell diagram. It is the 12th brightest star in the night sky, with an apparent magnitude of 0.77. Altair, along with Vega and Deneb, form the Summer Triangle asterism. Scientific name: Alpha Aquilae.

Etymology

Origin of Altair

< Arabic ( al-nasr ) al-ṭā'ir (the) flying (eagle)

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Rather than shun the growing underground of youthful hackers, he had been attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club, where young Altair and Commodore users met to trade their tiny software programs and swap lore.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 24, 2026

Rossi bought the bank through his company Altair Holding SA.

From BBC • Nov. 20, 2025

After Altair Jaspe moved from Venezuela to the Colombian capital, Bogotá, she was taken aback by the way she was addressed when she walked into any shop, cafe or doctor’s office.

From New York Times • Mar. 2, 2024

Altair is one of the very few stars for which this has been done.

From Scientific American • Jul. 14, 2023

That was when the magazine Popular Electronics ran a cover story on an extraordinary machine called the Altair 8800.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.