What is "centaur"

Centaur \Cen"taur\ (s[e^]n"t[add]r), n. [L. centaurus, Gr. Ke`ntayros.]

1. (Class. Myth.) A fabulous being, represented as half man and half horse.

2. (Astron.) A constellation in the southern heavens between Hydra and the Southern Cross. [1913 Webster] ||

late 14c., from Latin centaurus, from Greek Kentauros, origin disputed. In early Greek literature they were a savage, horse-riding tribe from Thessaly; later they were monsters half horse, half man. The southern constellation of Centaurus is attested in English from 1550s but was known by that name to the Romans and known as a centaur to the Greeks. It has often been confused since classical times with Sagittarius.

n. 1 (context Greek mythology English) One of a race of monsters having a head, torso, and arms of a man, and the body and legs of a horse. Often depicted as rowdy drunkards, with Chiron being a notable exception. 2 A skillful horseman or horsewoman. 3 (context rocketry English) A U.S. upper stage, with a restartable liquid-propellant engine, used with an Atlas or Titan booster to launch satellites and probes. 4 (context astronomy English) An icy planetoid that orbits the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune

1. n. (classical mythology) a mythical being that is half man and half horse

2. a conspicuous constellation in the southern hemisphere near the Southern Cross [syn: Centaurus, The Centaur]

A centaur (; , Kéntauros, ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a mythological creature with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse.

The centaurs were usually said to have been born of Ixion and Nephele (the cloud made in the image of Hera). Another version, however, makes them children of a certain Centaurus, who mated with the Magnesian mares. This Centaurus was either himself the son of Ixion and Nephele (inserting an additional generation) or of Apollo and Stilbe, daughter of the river god Peneus. In the later version of the story his twin brother was Lapithes, ancestor of the Lapiths, thus making the two warring peoples cousins.

Centaurs were said to have inhabited the region of Magnesia and Mount Pelion in Thessaly, the Foloi oak forest in Elis, and the Malean peninsula in southern Laconia.

Another tribe of centaurs was said to have lived on Cyprus. According to Nonnus, they were fathered by Zeus, who, in frustration after Aphrodite had eluded him, spilled his seed on the ground of that land. Unlike those of mainland Greece, the Cyprian centaurs were horned.

There were also the Lamian Pheres, twelve rustic daimones of the Lamos river. They were set by Zeus to guard the infant Dionysos, protecting him from the machinations of Hera but the enraged goddess transformed them into ox-horned Centaurs. The Lamian Pheres later accompanied Dionysos in his campaign against the Indians.

Centaurs subsequently featured in Roman mythology, and were familiar figures in the medieval bestiary. They remain a staple of modern fantastic literature. The centaur's half-human, half-horse composition has led many writers to treat them as liminal beings, caught between the two natures, embodied in contrasted myths, both as the embodiment of untamed nature, as in their battle with the Lapiths (their kin), or conversely as teachers, like Chiron.

In the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game, the centaur is a large monstrous humanoid. Based upon the centaurs of Greek myth, they resemble humans with the lower bodies of horses.

Centaur refers to a Greek mythological creature, half human, half horse.

Centaur may also refer to:

Centaur is a serif typeface by book and typeface designer Bruce Rogers, based on the Renaissance-period printing of Nicolas Jenson around 1470. It was given widespread release by Monotype, paired with an italic design by Frederic Warde.

Centaur is an elegant and quite slender design, an effect possibly amplified in the digital release. It was designed for fine book printing and is often used both for printing body text and also titles and headings. One of its most notable uses has been in the designs of Penguin Books, who have regularly used it for titling.

Centaur may refer to one of the following ships:

• AHS Centaur, an Australian hospital ship sunk in 1943
• HMS Centaur, eight ships of the British Royal Navy
• USS Centaur, a fictional starship in the Star Trek universe; appeared primarily in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " A Time to Stand"

Centaur was a 188-ton iron brig built in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1849.

She was sunk after striking a reef at the southern section of Marmion Reef on 9 December 1874 while travelling from Champion Bay to Fremantle. All nine crew and four passengers, including noted politician and lawyer Septimus Burt, survived. The 30 metre long brig was carrying a cargo of of galena when it struck the reef, about offshore.

The reef is now named Centaur Reef and is part of Marmion Marine Park north of Perth, Western Australia.

Centaur is a rocket stage designed for use as the upper stage of space launch vehicles and is currently used on the Atlas V. Centaur boosts its satellite payload to geosynchronous orbit or, in the case of an interplanetary space probe, to or near to escape velocity. Centaur was the world's first high-energy upper stage, burning liquid hydrogen ( LH2) and liquid oxygen ( LOX), and has enabled the launch of some of NASA's most important scientific missions over its 50-year history.

Centaur was the brainchild of Karel J. "Charlie" Bossart (the man behind the Atlas ICBM) and Dr. Krafft A. Ehricke, both Convair employees. Their design was essentially a smaller version of the Atlas, with its concept of using lightweight " stainless steel balloon" tanks whose structural rigidity was provided solely by the pressure of the propellants within. To keep the tanks from collapsing prior to propellant loading, they were either kept in "stretch" or pressurized with nitrogen gas.

Centaur is powered by one or two RL10 rocket engines (SEC and DEC variants respectively).

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Centaurs are minor planets with a semi-major axis between those of the outer planets. They have unstable orbits that cross or have crossed the orbits of one or more of the giant planets, and have dynamic lifetimes of a few million years. Centaurs typically behave with characteristics of both asteroids and comets. They are named after the mythological beings that were a mixture of horse and human, centaurs. It has been estimated that there are around 44,000 centaurs in the Solar System with diameters larger than 1 km.

The first centaur to be discovered, under the definition of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the one used here, was 944 Hidalgo in 1920. However, they were not recognized as a distinct population until the discovery of 2060 Chiron in 1977. The largest confirmed centaur is 10199 Chariklo, which at 260 km in diameter is as big as a mid-sized main-belt asteroid, and is known to have a system of rings. It was discovered in 1997. However, the lost centaur may be somewhat larger.

No centaur has been photographed up close, although there is evidence that Saturn's moon Phoebe, imaged by the Cassini probe in 2004, may be a captured centaur. In addition, the Hubble Space Telescope has gleaned some information about the surface features of 8405 Asbolus.

, three centaurs have been found to display cometary comas: Chiron, 60558 Echeclus, and 166P/NEAT. Chiron and Echeclus are therefore classified as both asteroids and comets. Other centaurs, such as 52872 Okyrhoe and 2012 CG, are suspected of showing cometary activity. Any centaur that is perturbed close enough to the Sun is expected to become a comet.

Centaur is a pinball machine designed by Jim Patla and produced by Bally. The game was inspired by the classic Bally's 1956 Balls-A-Poppin that was the first flipper pinball machine with multiball. Because of its success, the pinball machine was re-released in 1983 as Centaur II. The re-release has only a different backbox and was otherwise unchanged.