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quasar

/ˈkweɪ.zɑɹ/noun

quasar is a noun meaning “An extragalactic object, starlike in appearance, that is among the most luminous and (putatively) the most distant objects in the universe” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled Q-U-A-S-A-R and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 4 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of quasar is quasars.

What does quasar mean?

noun

  1. 1

    An extragalactic object, starlike in appearance, that is among the most luminous and (putatively) the most distant objects in the universe.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce quasar?

  • UK /ˈkweɪ.zɑː/
  • US /ˈkweɪ.zɑɹ/

Quasar has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-quasar.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of quasar

  • quasars plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is quasar?

Quasar appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 57,423rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you abbreviate quasar?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of quasar: Q.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Quasar in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense An extragalactic object:

LanguageWords
Frenchquasar
GermanQuasar
Portuguesequasar
Spanishcuásar, quasar (kuéisar)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does quasar come from?

Blend of quasi- + stellar, from quasi-stellar radio source. Coined by American astrophysicist Hong-Yee Chiu in 1964 in an article in Physics Today. By surface analysis, quasi- + -ar.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).