Cyborg

How to spell cyborg

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cyborg

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cyborg mean?

1. nounA being that is part organic and part mechanical, with bodily functions aided or controlled by built-in technology.

Cyborg in a sentence

• The film's villain was a cyborg with a metal arm and a human face.

• Researchers debate whether a person fitted with enough implants counts as a cyborg.

Where does cyborg come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Cyborg is a blend word, stitched together from the first parts of 'cybernetic' and 'organism'. It was coined in 1960 by two American researchers, Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline, in a paper about adapting the human body for the conditions of space travel; they imagined a being whose biological functions were partly controlled by built-in machinery. The 'cyber' element traces back to the Greek kubernetes, meaning 'steersman' or 'governor', the same root that gave us 'cybernetics', the study of control and communication in living things and machines. The 'org' element comes from 'organism', ultimately from the Greek organon, meaning 'tool' or 'instrument'. Science fiction quickly adopted the word for any creature that is part human and part machine, and that is the meaning most adults know today. The spelling trap is simply the 'y' in the first syllable and the silent jump from a 'sigh' sound to the written 'cy'.

How the word is built

• cyb- (from cybernetic)
• org (from organism)