taikonaut means A person who travels in space for the Chinese space program; a Chinese astronaut. It carries an Arena rating of 1389, earned across 58 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, taikonaut ranks #2,605 of 17,140 for Most Whimsical Words, #2,895 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #3,314 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #3,738 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books.
taikonaut is pronounced /ˈtaɪkəˌnɔːt/.
Why “taikonaut” is a great word
TAIKONAUT — [Noun] A person who travels into space as part of the Chinese space program. From Mandarin 太空 (tàikōng, "space") + -naut (from Greek nautēs, "sailor"), modelled after astronaut, cosmonaut, etc. Coined on 19 May 1998 by Chiew Lee Yih from Malaysia, with near-simultaneous coinage by Chen Lan for Western media. Unlike "astronaut," a term weighted with Western exploration, or "yǔhángyuán," the official domestic Chinese term, "taikonaut" is a linguistic artifact crafted explicitly for foreign eyes and ears. It is the crisp echo in English mission control, the silhouette of a Shenzhou capsule against the void, and the phonetic bridge between the Great Wall and the stars—a word born not from a nation's internal speech, but from the world's need to name its newest celestial sailor.
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.
noun
- A person who travels in space for the Chinese space program; a Chinese astronaut.e.g.“The past decade has seen remarkable events and changes: […] The Columbia disaster and a Chinese taikonaut in orbit” — 2003, Peter Schwartz, Inevitable Surprises, page x:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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