Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Centaur |
CentaurNoun1. (classical mythology) a mythical being that is half man and half horse. 2. A conspicuous constellation in the southern hemisphere near the Southern Cross. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "centaur" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1321. (references) |
Etymology: Centaur \Cen"taur\, noun. [Latin expression centaurus, Greek]. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Satire | CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse." The best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head of John the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat sophisticated sacred history. Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
Literature | Centaur (2 syl.). A huntsman. The Thessalian centaurs were half-horses, half-men. They were invited to a marriage feast, and, being intoxicated, behaved with great rudeness to the women. The Lapithae took the women's part, fell on the centaurs, and drove them out of the country. "Feasts that Thessalian centaurs never knew." Thomson: Autumn. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
See also centaur (planetoid), Centaur rocket The centaurs are a race from Greek mythology. They are part human and part horse, with a horse's body and a human head and torso in place of the horse's head and neck.
Dwelling in the mountains of Thessaly and Arcadia, the centaurs were the offspring of Ixion and Nephele (the rain-cloud). Alternatively, the centaurs were the offspring of Kentauros (the son of Ixion and Nephele) and some Magnesian mares or of Apollo and Hebe. It was sometimes said that Ixion planned to have sex with Hera but Zeus prevented it by fashioning a cloud in the shape of Hera. Since Ixion is usually considered the ancestor of the centaurs, they are often referred to as the Ixionidae.
They are best known for their fight with the Lapithae, caused by their attempt to carry off Hippodamia on the day of her marriage to Peirithous, king of the Lapithae, himself the son of Ixion. Theseus, who happened to be present, assisted Pirithous, and the Centaurs were driven off (Plutarch, Theseus, 30; Ovid, Metam. xii. 210; Diod. Sic. iv. 69, 70).
In later times they are often represented drawing the car of Dionysus, or bound and ridden by Eros, in allusion to their drunken and amorous habits. Their general character is that of wild, lawless and inhospitable beings, the slaves of their animal passions. Two exceptions to this rule were Pholus and Chiron, who were wise and kind centaurs. They are variously explained by a fancied resemblance to the shapes of clouds, or as spirits of the rushing mountain torrents or winds. As children of Apollo, they are taken to signify the rays of the Sun.
It is suggested as the origin of the legend, that the Greeks in early times, to whom riding was unfamiliar, regarded the horsemen of the northern hordes as one and the same with their horses; hence the idea of the Centaur as half-man, half-animal. Like the defeat of the Titanss by Zeus, the contests with the Centaurs typified the struggle between civilization and barbarism.
In early art they were represented as human beings in front, with the body and hind legs of a horse attached to the back; later, they were men only as far as the waist. The battle with the Lapithae, and the adventure of Heracles with Pholus (Apollodorus, ii. 5; Diod. Sic. iv. li) are favourite subjects of Greek art (see Sidney Colvin, Journal of Hellenic Studies, i. 1881, and the exhaustive article in Roscher's Lexikon der Mythologie).
There are other hybrid races, like centaurs, that show up in mythology such as the mermaids and the satyrs. A general 'taur form in modern science fiction and fantasy literature is a six limbed being, using four for locomotion and two for manipulation. They are based upon many different animals, not just horses and humans. In many, the 'human' part is in fact an anthropomorph of the base animal, such as in the wemic and bariaur.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Centaur."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The centaurs are a class of icy planetoids that orbit the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune, named after the mythical race of centaurs. The first three discovered were 2060 Chiron, 5145 Pholus and 7066 Nessus.Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Centaur (planetoid)."
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Model of Centuar with Surveyor as payload.The Centaur rocket is a high-energy upper stage designed for use on satellite launch vehicles, boosting the satellite into its final orbit or, in the case of interplanetary probes, to escape velocity.
Centaur was the brain child of Karel J. "Charlie" Bossart (the man behind the Atlas booster) and Dr. Krafft A. Ehriche, both Convair employees. Delopment started slowly in 1956. The first (unsuccessful) test flight was in May 1962. The first successful flight was some 3 years later.
Centaur was the world's first high-energy upper stage. It burns liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX), stored in balloon tanks, in either one or two RL-10 cryogenic rocket engines.
Centaur uses an ingenious common double-bulkhead to separate the LOX and LH2 tanks. The two stainless steel skins are separated by a .25 inch layer of fiberglass. The extreme cold of the LH2 on one side creates a vacuum within the fiberglass layer, giving the bulkhead a low thermal conductivity, and thus preventing heat transfer from the reasonably warm LOX to the super cold LH2.
A version of the Centaur was developed for use with the Space Shuttle but was never used due to tougher safety rules imposed after the Challenger accident. This decision helped led the US Air Force to create the Titan IV, which uses the Centuar as its final stage, to launch payloads which had originally been designed for the Shuttle-Centaur combination.
Centaur is used to this day on Atlas-Centaur and Titan-Centaur launch vehicles.
Centaur was named after the Greek mythological race of centaurs.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Centaur rocket."
Synonyms: CentaurSynonyms: Centaurus (n), The Centaur (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Unconformity | Phoenix, chimera, hydra, sphinx, minotaur; griffin, griffon; centaur; saggittary; kraken, wyvern, roc, dragon, sea serpent; mermaid, merman, merfolk; unicorn; Cyclops, "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders"; teratology. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Centaur |
| English words defined with "centaur": Hippocentaur ♦ Sagittary. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "centaur": Chiron. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "centaur": Hippocentaur. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Centaur" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Albanian (centaur), Dutch (centaur), Romanian (centaur), Swedish (centaur). |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Centaur (1972) The Wife of the Centaur (1924) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
References | |
Books |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Centaur Rocket Engine. Credit: NASA. |  | Centaur Standard Shroud at SPF Plum Brook. Credit: NASA. |
 | NOAA satellite GOES-J mounted on an Atlas Centaur rocket ready for launch. Satellite was launched on May 23, 1995 and became GOES-9 when operational. Credit: NOAA in Space. |  | The Centaur Bank / Donaldson Brothers, Five Points, New York. Credit: National Library of Medicine. |
 | Nude warrior with helmet battling centaur. Credit: Library of Congress. | ||
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| "Centaur" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 82.93% of the time. "Centaur" is used about 41 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 82.93% | 34 | 59,261 |
| Noun (proper) | 9.76% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 7.32% | 3 | 202,518 |
| Total | 100.00% | 41 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Country | Name | Country | Name |
| Australia | Centaur Mining & Exploration Ltd | USA | Centaur Pharmaceuticals, Inc. |
| (more examples...) |
Source: compiled by the editor from Icon Group International, Inc.
Expression using "centaur": the Centaur. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "centaur": centaur-like. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "centaur"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | centaur, njeri-kalë. (various references) | |
Arabic | قنطورس الظلمان علم الفل, القنطور كائن خرافي. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | кентавър. (various references) | |
Czech | kentaur. (various references) | |
Dutch | Centaur. (various references) | |
Esperanto | centaŭro. (various references) | |
Finnish | CENTAUR. (various references) | |
French | centaure, CENTAUR. (various references) | |
German | zentaur. (various references) | |
Greek | κένταυροσ. (various references) | |
Hebrew | קי טור. (various references) | |
Hungarian | kentaur. (various references) | |
Italian | centauro (motorcyclist), Centaur. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | ケンタウルス座 (Centaurus, Kentucky). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | ケンタウロス . (various references) | |
Manx | kentaur. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | entaurcay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | centauro. (various references) | |
Romanian | centaur. (various references) | |
Russian | кентавр. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | kentaur. (various references) | |
Spanish | centauro. (various references) | |
Swedish | CENTAUR. (various references) | |
Turkish | insan başlı at, iki cinsli yaratık. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | сузір'я кентавра, кентавр. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | chòm sao người ngựa, quái vật đầu người, mình ngựa. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Centaurus. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "centaur": centaurea, centaureas, centauries, centaurs, centaury. (additional references) | |
| |
"Centaur" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: benatura, Cantamus, Cantaur, Cantuar, carnotaur, centa, centar, Centaura, centauri, Centawer, Centium, centor, centual, centuary, Cintura, Citeaux, cuenta, Kentaru, sentaur. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "centaur" (pronounced se"ntô'r) |
| 5 | -e" n t ô' r | mentor. |
| 3 | -t ô' r | bookstore, drugstore, superstore. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: uncrate. | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-e-n-r-t-u" | |
-1 letter: acuter, canter, carnet, centra, curate, nature, nectar, recant, tanrec, trance. | |
-2 letters: acute, antre, caner, caret, carte, cater, centu, crane, crate, cruet, curet, cuter, enact, eruct, nacre, rance, react, recta, recut, trace, truce, tuner, urate. | |
-3 letters: acne, acre, ante, aunt, cane, cant, care, carn, cart, cate, cent, cure, curn, curt, cute, earn, ecru, etna. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-e-n-r-t-u" | |
+1 letter: anuretic, centaurs, centaury, chaunter, courante, outrance, recusant, truncate, uncrated, uncrates, uncreate, underact, untraced. | |
+2 letters: antiulcer, calenture, centaurea, chaunters, courantes, courtesan, crenulate, curtained, incurvate, mucronate, nectarous, nucleator, outrances, raconteur, recusants, reductant, reluctant, runcinate, stauncher, transduce, truancies, truncated, truncates, uncertain, uncharted, uncreated, uncreates, underacts, undercoat, utterance. | |
+3 letters: accruement, aeronautic, auctioneer, calentures, centaureas, centauries, counteract, counterman, courantoes, courtesans, crenulated, crustacean, enunciator, eructating, eructation, inaccurate, incurvated, incurvates, lacustrine, lenticular, nucleators, nunciature, nurturance, nutcracker, precaution, purtenance, raconteurs, raunchiest, reacquaint, reductants, reluctance, reluctancy, renunciate, retinacula, scattergun, subcentral, tentacular, transduced, transducer, transduces, ulcerating, ulceration, ultraclean, uncarpeted, unclearest, uncreating, uncreative, underacted, undercoats, underreact, utterances. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Names: Company Usage 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
