astronomical unit

1. 1.

   a unit of length used for distances within the solar system; equal to the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun (approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers)

   SynonymsAU

   Broaderastronomy unit

Questions about astronomical unit

What does astronomical unit mean?

astronomical unit means "a unit of length used for distances within the solar system; equal to the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun (approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers)".

What is another word for astronomical unit?

Close synonyms include AU. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is astronomical unit a common word?

astronomical unit is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.