Meaning & use
astronaut
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
Someone who is trained to fly in a spacecraft and work in space.
Grammar: Countable: one astronaut, two astronauts; use a/a before it.
Patterns
- become an astronaut
- send astronauts into space
- a former astronaut
She dreamed of becoming an astronaut after watching a rocket launch on television.
The astronauts spent six months aboard the space station.
Three astronauts were chosen for the first crewed flight of the new capsule.
nouncountable
A space traveler from any country other than Russia or the former Soviet Union.
Grammar: In careful use, Russian space travelers are called cosmonauts, not astronauts.
Patterns
- an American astronaut
- a European astronaut
The crew included two American astronauts and one Japanese astronaut.
NASA selects new astronauts every few years from thousands of applicants.
Word forms
| plural | astronauts |
|---|
Common combinations
- become an astronaut
- He trained as a pilot before he became an astronaut.
- a veteran astronaut
- A veteran astronaut led the mission to repair the telescope.
- send an astronaut into space
- The agency plans to send an astronaut to the Moon again.
- astronaut training
- Astronaut training includes survival exercises and long hours in simulators.
- the first astronaut
- Yuri Gagarin was the first astronaut to orbit the Earth.
Synonyms and how they differ
- cosmonaut
- Use cosmonaut for space travelers from Russia or the former Soviet Union; astronaut is the general English word elsewhere.
- spaceman
- Spaceman is an older, informal word and sounds dated or childish today.
- taikonaut
- Taikonaut is used mainly in the media for Chinese space travelers.
Word family
- astronautics noun
- the science and engineering of spaceflight.
- astronomical adjective
- relating to astronomy, or extremely large.
- astronomy noun
- the study of stars, planets, and other objects in space.
Commonly confused: astronaut or astronomer? astronaut or cosmonaut?
astronaut vs astronomer
An astronomer studies space from the ground or with telescopes; an astronaut actually travels into space.
astronaut vs cosmonaut
Both travel in space, but cosmonaut is the traditional term for Russian and Soviet space travelers.
Practice
Which sentence uses astronaut correctly?
Choose one answer.
An astronaut travels and works in space, so repairing a telescope from the space station fits. The other options describe the work of an astronomer, who studies space from Earth.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “astronaut”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.