astronaut
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of astronaut
1925–30; astro- + (aero)naut, probably via French astronaute; see astronautical
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Explanation
An astronaut is someone who travels in space. While the term was once reserved for military-trained professionals, recent accessibility of space travel has seen the term astronaut now used to refer to anyone traveling in a spacecraft, including civilians. The word astronaut includes the root naut, from nautes, the Greek word for "sailor." This suffix can be used to create many travel-specific words. For example, the Argonauts were mythical Greek sailors on the ship named the Argo. Astronaut gets the astro from the Greek word astron, meaning "star," making an astronaut a “star sailor.” Russian space explorers took the title cosmonauts, with the cosmo part coming from the Greek for "universe," kosmos, so both have the same meaning.
Vocabulary lists containing astronaut
Occupations
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Elements of the Universe: Aster, Astro ("Star")
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astro, aster
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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.
See Examples For:
Winocour has often made films about women balancing their public-facing life with their private selves In 2019’s “Proxima,” Eva Green played an astronaut missing her young daughter.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 26, 2026
Rep. Jasmine Crockett and former astronaut Terry Virts in their unsuccessful Senate runs.
From Salon ● Jun. 17, 2026
Eight years later, the Dragon spacecraft carried its first astronaut to the ISS, beating other aerospace companies like Boeing to becoming the main American transport to the space station.
From Barron's ● Jun. 12, 2026
Bresnik, a California native, graduated from The Citadel with a mathematics degree and joined NASA's astronaut corps in 2004.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 11, 2026
When it was over, Ruth continued to hope that, in some way, she would be allowed to be an astronaut.
From "Women in Space" by Karen Bush Gibson
I like baseball, but it’s not like these guys are astronauts, just back from the moon.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Up to two Artemis III astronauts wearing orange Orion crew survival system suits will open the hatch and enter the Blue Origin test lander.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026
After the tests are complete, the Artemis III astronauts will return to Earth aboard Orion and splash down safely.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 23, 2026
India plans to send astronauts into space next year, an orbiter to Venus by 2028 and build its own space station by 2035.
From BBC ● Jul. 18, 2026
When the astronauts broke through the atmosphere and splashed down in the Pacific, we were repaid with an electrical storm.
From "Gone Crazy in Alabama" by Rita Williams-Garcia
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.
