Earth & SkyGreek → English
Cosmonaut
/ˈkɒzmənɔːt/noun
A space traveller trained by the Russian or Soviet space programme.
The Greek roots
κόσμος
kósmos
order, world, universe
ναύτης
naútēs
sailor
Literally: “universe sailor”
The story of the word
English took this from Russian kosmonavt around 1959, and the two Greek pieces had never met before. Astronaut, the older word, sails among the stars; the cosmonaut sails the whole ordered universe, which is what kosmos meant before it meant outer space. Both words follow the pattern of argonaut, and the Greeks themselves used nautēs for men on actual water.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Russian coinage → English
- First recorded
- 1959
Same family
astronautargonautnauticalcosmos
In a sentence
The cosmonaut spent 437 days in orbit, a record that still stands.