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Gagarin

Gagarin

5 7.6
A Soviet astronaut who in 1961 became the first person to travel into space
  • proper noun
: Gagarin
  • It was the same year when Yuri Gagarin was launched and Kennedy made his famous speech that we should go to the moon.
  • Yuri Gagarin
  • Gagarin, the first

Our first astronaut, Alan Shepard, who flew A suborbital flight, followed Gagarin by only three weeks after Shepherd's flight.

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Examples

  • Only a month before Kennedy's moon speech, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had become the first human to be launched into Earth orbit.

    Academic text (1998)

  • Four years later, when NASA was putting monkeys in its rockets, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to go into space.

    Fly Me to the Moon (2008)

  • 1961: Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man in space.

    Academic text (2011)

  • Gagarin completed one full orbit around the planet in 108 minutes.

    Hidden Figures (2016)

  • The Soviet news agency has announced that Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, has become the first man in space.

    Hidden Figures (2016)

  • In 1961, the world changed when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin flew his historic journey around the Earth in a record time of an hour and forty-eight minutes.

    Academic text (2012)

  • The 1960s are bookended by the two most iconic events of the Space Race: Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person in space in 1961 and Neil Armstrong landing on the moon in 1969.

    Academic text (2017)

  • On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Gagarin made history by being the first human to travel into outer space.

  • Yuri Gagarin became an international hero after his successful space mission in 1961.

  • The launch of Gagarin into space marked a significant milestone in the space race between the Soviet Union and the United States.

Synonyms

Yuri Gagarin
vsGagarin
3 5.0

A Soviet pilot who became the first person to travel into space in 1961

uses only the family name as a shorter familiar label for the same person

Surface Forms

Gagarin main

Etymology

Gagarin is a Russian family name that comes from the bird gagara, a water bird whose name means 'diving duck' or 'loon'. A helpful way to remember Yuri Gagarin is to think of that bird: his name is like a bird that dives and flies, which fits him being the first person to go into space.