sputnik: [20] Russian sputnik means literally ‘travelling companion’ (it is formed from s ‘with’ and put ‘way, journey’, with the agent suffix -nik). The Soviets gave the name to the series of Earth-orbiting satellites that they launched between 1957 and 1961. The first bleeps from space in October 1957 came as a severe shock to the West, which had not thought Soviet science capable of such a thing, and immediately propelled sputnik into the English language (the politically charged English version ‘fellow traveller’, which is more strictly a translation of Russian popútchik, was tried for a time, but never caught on).
It became one of the ‘in’ words of the late 1950s, and did much to popularize the suffix -nik in English (as in beatnik and peacenik).
sputnik (n.)
"artificial satellite," extended from the name of the one launched by the Soviet Union Oct. 4, 1957, from Russian sputnik "satellite," literally "traveling companion" (in this use short for sputnik zemlyi, "traveling companion of the Earth") from Old Church Slavonic supotiniku, from Russian so-, s- "with, together" + put' "path, way," from Old Church Slavonic poti, from PIE *pent- "to tread, go" (see find (v.)) + agent suffix -nik.
The electrifying impact of the launch on the West can be gauged by the number of new formations in -nik around this time (the suffix had been present in a Yiddish context for at least a decade before); Laika, the stray dog launched aboard Sputnik 2 (Nov. 2, 1957), which was dubbed muttnik in the "Detroit Free Press," etc. The rival U.S. satellite which failed to reach orbit in 1957 (because the Vanguard rocket blew up on the launch pad) derided as a kaputnik (in the "Daytona Beach Morning Journal"), a dudnik ("Christian Science Monitor"), a flopnik ("Youngstown Vindicator," "New York Times"), a pffftnik ("National Review"), and a stayputnik ("Vancouver Sun").
雙語例句
1. In 1957, the Soviets launched Sputnik 1 into outer space.