centaur

See also: Centaur

English

A bronze statue of a centaur

Alternative forms

• Centaur

Etymology

From Latin centaurus, from Ancient Greek κένταυρος (kéntauros), from Κένταυρος (Kéntauros, “a member of a savage race from Thessaly”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: sĕn'tô(r), IPA^(key): /ˈsɛntɔː(ɹ)/
• Rhymes: -ɛntɔː(ɹ)
• (US, Canada, also) IPA^(key): /ˈsɛntɑɹ/
• Hyphenation: cen‧taur

Noun

centaur (plural centaurs)

1. (Greek mythology) A mythical beast having a horse's body with a man's head and torso in place of the head and neck of the horse.

   Synonym: hippocentaur

2. (astronomy, also capitalised) An icy planetoid that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune.
3. (chess) A chess-playing team comprising a human player and a computer who work together.
   • 2018, James Bridle, New Dark Age: Technology, Knowledge and the End of the Future, Verso Books, →ISBN, page 159:

     This was not Kasparov's approach. Instead of rejecting the machines, he returned the year after his defeat to Deep Blue with a different kind of chess, which he called ‘Advanced Chess’. Other names for Advanced Chess include ‘cyborg’ and ‘centaur’ chess.

4. (by extension, artificial intelligence) A human and an AI who work together.
   • 2023 November 11, John Burn-Murdoch, “Generative AI and white-collar jobs: reasons to be wary”, in FT Weekend, The FT View, page 8:

     The first—termed “cyborgs” by the authors—intertwined with the AI, moulding, checking and refining its responses, while the second—“centaurs”—divided labour, handing off more AI-suited subtasks while focussing on their own areas of expertise.

   • 2023 November 13, James Somers, “A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft”, in The New Yorker‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Programming has not yet gone the way of chess. But the centaurs have arrived. GPT-4 on its own is, for the moment, a worse programmer than I am. Ben is much worse. But Ben plus GPT-4 is a dangerous thing.

Derived terms

• centaurial, centaurian, centauric, centauroid
• centauress, centaurette
• ichthyocentaur
• onocentaur

Translations

mythical half-man, half-horse

• Afrikaans: sentour (af) m
• Arabic: قَنْطُور m (qanṭūr)
• Aramaic:

  Classical Syriac: ܣܘܣܝ ܒܪܢܫ m

• Armenian: կենտավրոս (hy) (kentavros)
• Asturian: centauru m
• Azerbaijani: kentavr
• Belarusian: кентаўр m (kjentaŭr)
• Bulgarian: кентавър m (kentavǎr)
• Catalan: centaure m
• Chinese:

  Cantonese: 人馬／人马 (jan⁴ maa⁵)

  Hakka: 人馬／人马 (ngìn-mâ)

  Mandarin: 人馬／人马 (zh) (rénmǎ), 半人馬／半人马 (zh) (bànrénmǎ)

• Czech: kentaur m
• Danish: kentaur c
• Dutch: paardmens m, kentaur (nl) m, centaur (nl) m
• Esperanto: centaŭro
• Faroese: rossmaður m
• Finnish: kentauri (fi)
• French: centaure (fr) m
• Galician: centauro (gl) m
• German: Zentaur (de) m
• Greek: κένταυρος (el) m (kéntavros)

  Ancient: κένταυρος m (kéntauros)

• Hebrew: קֶנְטָאוּר (he) m (kentaur)
• Hindi: सेंटूर (sẽṭūr)
• Hungarian: kentaur (hu)
• Ido: centauro (io)
• Irish: ceinteár m
• Italian: centauro (it) m
• Japanese: ケンタウロス (ja) (Kentaurosu), 人馬 (ja) (じんば, jinba)
• Korean: 켄타우로스 (kentauroseu), 인마 (ko) (inma)
• Latin: centaurus m
• Lithuanian: kentauras m
• Macedonian: кента́вр m (kentávr), ке́нтаур m (kéntaur)
• Malay: sentora, sentaur​
• Marathi: सेंटॉर m (seṇṭŏr)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: kentaur (no) m

  Nynorsk: kentaur m

• Polish: centaur (pl) m
• Portuguese: centauro (pt) m
• Russian: кента́вр (ru) m (kentávr), китовра́с (ru) m (kitovrás) (Russian mythology)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: кентаур m

  Roman: kentaur (sh) m

• Slovak: centaurus (sk) m, kentaur m, kentaurus (sk) m
• Slovene: kentaver (sl) m (as a creature), Kentaver (sl) m (as a race)
• Spanish: centauro (es) m
• Swahili: kentauro
• Swedish: kentaur (sv) c
• Tagalog: sentawro
• Turkish: kentaur, kentauroi pl, at adam, aryunt, eryunt, yaryunt
• Ukrainian: кента́вр m (kentávr)
• Volapük: käntor (vo)
• Welsh: dynfarch m

astronomy

• Bulgarian: Кентавър (Kentavǎr)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 半人馬座／半人马座 (zh) (bànrénmǎzuò)

• Czech: Kentaur (cs) m, souhvězdí Kentaura n
• French: Centaure (fr)
• Hungarian: Kentaur (hu)
• Italian: centauro (it) m
• Japanese: ケンタウルス (Kentaurusu), ケンタウロス (ja) (Kentaurosu), ケンタウルス族 (Kentaurusu-zoku)
• Macedonian: Ке́нтаур m (Kéntaur)

See also

(mythical creature):

• faun, horseman, minotaur, satyr

Further reading

• Centaur (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• near cut, traunce, uncrate, untrace

Dutch

Alternative forms

• kentaur

Etymology

Ultimately from Latin centaurus, from Ancient Greek κένταυρος (kéntauros).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɛnˌtɑu̯ər/, /ˈkɛnˌtɑu̯ər/

• Audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: cen‧taur

Noun

centaur m (plural centauren, diminutive centaurtje n)

1. centaur

   Synonyms: menspaard, paardmens

Polish

centaur

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin centaurus.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈt͡sɛn.tawr/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛntawr
• Syllabification: cen‧taur
• Homophone: Centaur

Noun

centaur m animal

1. (Greek mythology) centaur (mythical half-man, half-horse)

Declension

Declension of centaur

	singular	plural
nominative	centaur	centaury
genitive	centaura	centaurów
dative	centaurowi	centaurom
accusative	centaura	centaury
instrumental	centaurem	centaurami
locative	centaurze	centaurach
vocative	centaurze	centaury

Related terms

noun

• Centaur

 

Further reading

• centaur in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• centaur in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Romanian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin centaurus.

Noun

centaur m (plural centauri)

1. centaur

Declension

Declension of centaur

	singular		plural
	indefinite articulation	definite articulation	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) centaur	centaurul	(niște) centauri	centaurii
genitive/dative	(unui) centaur	centaurului	(unor) centauri	centaurilor
vocative	centaurule		centaurilor