centaur

American  

[sen-tawr] / ˈsɛn tɔr /

noun

1. Classical Mythology. one of a race of creatures having the head, trunk, and arms of a man, and the body and legs of a horse.

2. Astronomy. Centaur, the constellation Centaurus.

3. a skillful horseman or horsewoman.

4. Rocketry. Centaur, a U.S. upper stage, with a restartable liquid-propellant engine, used with an Atlas or Titan booster to launch satellites and probes.

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centaur British  

/ ˈsɛntɔː /

noun

1. Greek myth one of a race of creatures with the head, arms, and torso of a man, and the lower body and legs of a horse

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Centaur Scientific  

/ sĕn′tôr′ /

1. Any of a group of icy bodies similar to both asteroids and comets, orbiting the Sun in elliptical paths mostly in the region between Saturn and Neptune. Centaurs range in diameter from around 100 to 400 km (62 to 248 mi) and are believed to be Kuiper belt objects that have escaped into the vicinity of the gas-giant planets. Centaurs are considered to have unstable orbits, and gravitational encounters with the large outer planets could send them into the inner solar system or alternatively could eject them from the solar system into interstellar space. Chiron, the first such body to be classified as a Centaur, was discovered in 1977.

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Other Word Forms

• centaurial adjective
• centaurian adjective
• centauric adjective

Etymology

Origin of centaur

First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, Old English, from Latin centaurus, from Greek kéntauros

Related Words

• behemoth
• freak
• giant
• whale