Dictionary

centaur en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈsɛn.tɔɹ/ (General-American)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈsɛn.tɑɹ/ (General-American)
• /ˈsɛn.tɔː/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

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

Meanings

1. (Greek) 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.
2. (also, capitalized) One of a number of icy planetoids that orbit the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune.
3. A chess-playing team comprising a human player and a computer who work together.
   • 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. 2018, James Bridle, New Dark Age: Technology, Knowledge and the End of the Future, Verso Books, →ISBN, page 159:
4. (broadly, qualifier:artificial intelligence) A human and an AI who work together.
   • 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 11, John Burn-Murdoch, “Generative AI and white-collar jobs: reasons to be wary”, in FT Weekend (The FT View section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8:
   • 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. 2023 November 13, James Somers, “A Coder Considers the Waning Days of the Craft”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN:
   • A centaur goes in circles if the human half doesn’t know what it’s doing. That’s where the panic over pedagogy comes in. 2025 October 26, Kwame Anthony Appiah, “The Age of De-Skilling”, in The Atlantic:

Forms

Deriveds

centaurial · centaurdom · taur · centaurian · centaurette · centauresque · onocentaur · centauress · humantaur · ichthyocentaur · centauroid · centauric

Relateds

minotaur · satyr · horseman · faun · hippotaur

Synonyms

hippocentaur

Translations (84)

ru китовра́с (mythical half-man, half-horse) · fr Centaure (astronomy) · tr yaryunt (mythical half-man, half-horse) · de Zentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sk kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ja 人馬 (mythical half-man, half-horse) · fr centaure (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ms sentora (mythical half-man, half-horse) · it centauro (mythical half-man, half-horse) · it centauro (astronomy) · ms sentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · tr eryunt (mythical half-man, half-horse) · af sentour (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sh кентаур (mythical half-man, half-horse) · eo centaŭro (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ga ceinteár (mythical half-man, half-horse) · hi सेंटूर (mythical half-man, half-horse) · syc ܣܘܣܝ ܒܪܢܫ (mythical half-man, half-horse) · uk кента́вр (mythical half-man, half-horse) · tr kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · io centauro (mythical half-man, half-horse) · hu kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · cy dynfarch (mythical half-man, half-horse) · pl centaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · vi nhân mã (mythical half-man, half-horse) · bg Кентавър (astronomy) · tr kentauroi (mythical half-man, half-horse) · pt centauro (mythical half-man, half-horse) · cs kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ja ケンタウロス (astronomy) · hy ձիացուլ (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sw kentauro (mythical half-man, half-horse) · fi kentauri (mythical half-man, half-horse) · tr aryunt (mythical half-man, half-horse) · gl centauro (mythical half-man, half-horse) · mk Ке́нтаур (astronomy) · da kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ru кента́вр (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sh kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · nn kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · mk ке́нтаур (mythical half-man, half-horse) · mk кента́вр (mythical half-man, half-horse) · tr at adam (mythical half-man, half-horse) · hy կենտավրոս (mythical half-man, half-horse) · az kentavr (mythical half-man, half-horse) · he קֶנְטָאוּר (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ko 켄타우로스 (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sk centaurus (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ko 인마 (mythical half-man, half-horse) · yue 人馬 /人马 (mythical half-man, half-horse) · tl sentawro (mythical half-man, half-horse) · nl Centaur (astronomy) · bg кентавър (mythical half-man, half-horse) · mr सेंटॉर (mythical half-man, half-horse) · cmn 半人馬 /半人马 (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sk kentaurus (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ja ケンタウロス (mythical half-man, half-horse) · cs Kentaur (astronomy) · nl paardmens (mythical half-man, half-horse) · nl centaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sl kentaver (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sl Kentaver (mythical half-man, half-horse) · hak 人馬 /人马 (mythical half-man, half-horse) · fo rossmaður (mythical half-man, half-horse) · sv kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · el κένταυρος (mythical half-man, half-horse) · la centaurus (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ca centaure (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ast centauru (mythical half-man, half-horse) · be кентаўр (mythical half-man, half-horse) · nl kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · cs souhvězdí Kentaura (astronomy) · ar قَنْطُور (mythical half-man, half-horse) · cmn 半人馬座 /半人马座 (astronomy) · vo käntor (mythical half-man, half-horse) · ja ケンタウルス (astronomy) · grc κένταυρος (mythical half-man, half-horse) · es centauro (mythical half-man, half-horse) · hy մարդաձի (mythical half-man, half-horse) · hu Kentaur (astronomy) · ja ケンタウルス族 (astronomy) · nb kentaur (mythical half-man, half-horse) · lt kentauras (mythical half-man, half-horse) · cmn 人馬 /人马 (mythical half-man, half-horse)