Aldebaran

noun

Al·​deb·​a·​ran al-ˈde-bə-rən 

: a red star of the first magnitude that is seen in the eye of Taurus and is the brightest star in the Hyades

Examples of Aldebaran in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Uranus will be high in the southwest, north of the Hyades star cluster and the bright orange star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. —Joe Rao, Space.com, 27 Mar. 2025

Jupiter is the north-northwest, 31 degrees above the horizon with Aldebaran above it, rather than below. —Jesse Emspak, Space.com, 27 Feb. 2025

Jupiter is also accompanied by two naked-eye star clusters (the Pleiades and Hyades) and an entourage of other bright winter stars, the most notable of which is orange Aldebaran which marks the angry eye of the constellation of Taurus the Bull and lies in relatively close proximity below Jupiter. —Joe Rao, Space.com, 5 Feb. 2025

Both the moon and Jupiter will be in the Taurus constellation during the close approach, appearing as two bright points above the red supergiant star Aldebaran, the brightest star in the constellation and thus referred to as the eye of the bull. —Samantha Mathewson, Space.com, 10 Jan. 2025

Red Supergiant Stars Many of the stars in the Dragon Arc are red supergiants, similar to Betelgeuse in the constellation of Orion and Aldebaran in Taurus, both of which are visible now in the eastern night sky immediately after sunset. —Jamie Carter, Forbes, 6 Jan. 2025

The bright-red supergiant star Aldebaran will align with the trio. —Jamie Carter, Space.com, 28 Dec. 2024

Photo: SoftBank Robotics One audience member remembered Aldebaran, the French company that gave us Pepper. —IEEE Spectrum, 24 Sep. 2018

Taurus, with its orangey star Aldebaran and, above, The Pleiades, an open cluster of stars. —Jamie Carter, Forbes, 23 Dec. 2024

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from Medieval Latin, borrowed from Arabic al-dabarān, probably a name for the Hyades star cluster

Note: Arabic usage is not uniform in regard to whether al-dabarān is to be interpreted as the star α Tauri, or the entire Hyades star cluster, though the phrase in the Almagest, translating Ptolemy's Greek text, suggests the latter. Arabic authors took dabarān as a derivative of the root d-b-r, with meanings related to "back" (hence dabarī "trailing behind"), on the grounds that the Hyades, along with α Tauri, trailed behind or followed the Pleiades. This has the appearance of an after-the-fact etymology, however, and dabarān may be a pre-Islamic name for the cluster, of unknown origin. See Paul Kunitzsch, Arabische Sternnamen in Europa (Wiesbaden, 1959) pp. 109-10.

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

Aldebaran

noun

Al·​deb·​a·​ran al-ˈdeb-ə-rən 

: a very bright red star in Taurus