Associations to the word «Sputnik»

Wiktionary

SPUTNIK, noun. (historical) Any of a series of Soviet robotic space satellites, especially the first one in 1957.
SPUTNIK, noun. (dated) Any artificial satellite.
SPUTNIK MOMENT, noun. The moment that a country or a society, in particular the US, realizes that it needs to catch up with the apparent technological and scientific gap that exists between it and some other country, increasing its investment efforts into education and innovative R&D.

Dictionary definition

SPUTNIK, noun. A Russian artificial satellite; "Sputnik was the first man-made satellite to orbit the earth".

Wise words

Words are always getting conventionalized to some secondary meaning. It is one of the works of poetry to take the truants in custody and bring them back to their right senses.
William Butler Yeats