English Explanatory Dictionary

taikonaut

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A person who travels in space for the Chinese space program; a Chinese astronaut.

Pronunciation

/ˈtaɪkəˌnɔːt/ LL-Q1860 (eng)-Knabrupt-taikonaut.wav

Word forms

taikonaut taikonauts

Etymology

From Mandarin 太空 (tàikōng, “space”) + -naut, modelled after astronaut, cosmonaut, spationaut, etc. The term was coined on 19 May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih (趙里昱 (Zhào Lǐyù)) from Malaysia, who used it first in newsgroups. Almost simultaneously, Chen Lan coined it for use in the Western media.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on T Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary