Zodiac Signs in English: Names, Pronunciation & Meanings

The zodiac signs in English are not English. Every one of the twelve is Latin, sitting unchanged in a language that otherwise translated most of what it borrowed. English says Sagittarius where German says Schütze, Dutch says Boogschutter and Swedish says Skytten — all of them native words meaning “shooter” or “archer”.

Which makes English the odd one out in its own family, and it explains the things people actually search for: how to pronounce these words, how to spell them, and what to call the people born under them. This guide covers all of it, plus the English names for signs searched in other languages.

What Does “Zodiac” Mean in English?

The zodiac is the band of sky that the Sun, Moon and planets appear to travel through over the year. Astrologers divide it into twelve equal 30-degree sections, and each section is a zodiac sign. The signs are named after constellations, though they no longer line up with them exactly because of the slow wobble of Earth’s axis.

The word comes from the Greek zōidiakos kyklos, roughly “circle of little animals” — a fair description, since most of the signs are animals. In everyday English a zodiac sign is also called a star sign or sun sign, meaning the sign the Sun was in on the day you were born.

All 12 Zodiac Signs in English

How to Pronounce the Zodiac Signs in English

Here is the pronunciation of every zodiac sign in one place. Capital letters mark the stressed syllable, and the IPA column uses standard American English. Where British English differs, the last column says so.

The Five Zodiac Signs in English People Mispronounce Most

Seven of the twelve give nobody any trouble. These five do.

How to pronounce Sagittarius

Sagittarius is pronounced saj-ih-TAIR-ee-us, five syllables with the stress on the third. Two things go wrong. People compress the middle and produce four syllables, and people say “sadj-ih-TAR-ee-us” with a flat a instead of the “air” sound. The double t in the spelling is a single sound. See the Sagittarius profile.

How to pronounce Aquarius

Aquarius is pronounced uh-KWAIR-ee-us. The opening a is a weak “uh”, not “ack”, and the qu is “kw”. “Ack-WAR-ee-us” is the usual error. See the Aquarius profile.

How to pronounce Gemini

Gemini is pronounced JEM-ih-nye, rhyming the last syllable with “eye”. JEM-ih-nee is also heard and is not wrong, but the “-nye” ending is the standard in astrological use and in the space programme it gave its name to. The Gemini profile has more.

How to pronounce Pisces

Pisces is pronounced PYE-seez. The i is long and the c is soft. Not “PISS-eez”, not “PEE-cheez” — the second of which comes from readers who know the Italian Pesci. See the Pisces profile.

How to pronounce Libra

Libra is pronounced LEE-bruh in modern English on both sides of the Atlantic. Worth knowing that older British English said LYE-bruh, and you will still hear it from some speakers and in older recordings. Both are defensible; “LEE-bruh” is now standard. The Libra profile covers the sign.

How to Spell the Zodiac Signs

Most spelling mistakes come from the same few places: doubled letters, the qu in Aquarius, and Pisces being mistaken for the everyday word “pieces”.

Two related words people also get wrong: zodiac is spelled z-o-d-i-a-c, ending in -ac and not “-ack”, and horoscope is spelled h-o-r-o-s-c-o-p-e, with three os.

Why English Kept the Latin When Its Relatives Did Not

English is a Germanic language, and every other Germanic language in this series translated the zodiac into native vocabulary. German built Wassermann and Steinbock. Dutch built Weegschaal and Boogschutter. The Scandinavian languages did the same.

English did not, for the same reason English says “commence” as well as “begin”: after 1066 the language absorbed Latin and French vocabulary on a scale that no other Germanic language matched, and technical fields ended up almost entirely Latinate. Astrology was a technical field. Chaucer was writing about the signs in English by the 1390s, and the Latin names were already the ones in use.

The native names survived alongside them without ever taking over — which is why an English almanac can print “Aries, the Ram” and both halves feel correct.

Zodiac Signs in Other Languages and Their English Names

If you are searching for the English word for a sign you know in another language, the tables below give the answer. For example, Sagitario (Spanish) and Sagitário (Portuguese) are Sagittarius, Vattumannen (Swedish) and Wassermann (German) are Aquarius, and Capricórnio (Portuguese) is Capricorn.

Zodiac Signs in English to Spanish, Portuguese, German and Swedish

Full lists: zodiac signs in Spanish, Portuguese, German and Swedish.

Zodiac Signs in English to Romanian and Polish

In Romanian a sign is a zodie, so “Berbec zodie engleză” means “Aries zodiac in English”. In Polish it is a znak zodiaku.

Zodiac Signs in English to Arabic and Chinese

In Chinese, 英文 (yīngwén) means “in English”, so 雙魚座英文 is “Pisces in English”.

What Do You Call a Person Born Under Each Sign?

English has a word for each, and unlike Portuguese or Spanish it uses them unevenly — some are common, some sound bookish, and for four signs most people simply use the sign name itself.

There is a pattern in that last column, and it is a useful one. The adjective wins wherever the Latin name is awkward as a countable noun. Nobody says “two Aquariuses” or “three Pisces” if they can help it, so Aquarians and Pisceans took over. Where the Latin pluralises cleanly — Leos, Virgos, Scorpios — the adjective never caught on.

Plurals: Two Scorpios or Two Scorpio?

This is the question the Latin creates. Two of the twelve names are Latin plurals already, and four more are awkward to pluralise.

• Clean plurals: Leos, Virgos, Scorpios, Libras, Cancers, Capricorns.
• Already plural in Latin: Gemini (twins) and Pisces (fishes). English treats both as singular anyway — “she’s a Gemini” — which is technically a mismatch that nobody minds. When a plural is needed, “Geminis” is common and “Pisces” stays unchanged.
• Awkward: Aries, Taurus, Sagittarius, Aquarius. Aries is unchanged in the plural; the others take -es if you insist, but Taureans, Sagittarians and Aquarians are what people actually write.

The Older English Names, Still in Use

The native names never disappeared. They survive in almanacs, in astronomy writing, and any time someone wants the image rather than the label: the Ram, the Bull, the Twins, the Crab, the Lion, the Maiden, the Scales, the Scorpion, the Archer, the Sea-Goat, the Water-Bearer, the Fish.

Two are worth a note. Capricorn’s native name is the Sea-Goat, not the Goat — the original Babylonian figure was a goat with a fish’s tail, and English is one of the few languages that preserved the hybrid. German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages all replaced it with a plain mountain ibex. And Sagittarius is sometimes the Centaur rather than the Archer, since the constellation was drawn as a centaur drawing a bow.

English Astrology Vocabulary

One point of usage: “star sign” is standard British English and “sun sign” is the more precise term, since it specifies which body’s position you mean. American English tends to say “zodiac sign” where British English says “star sign”.

Frequently Asked Questions

Zodiac Signs in English Compared With Ten Other Languages

English is the outlier in its own family, and the contrast is the quickest way to see it. The zodiac signs in German and the Dutch list show what English would look like had it translated instead of borrowed; Swedish, Danish and Norwegian did the same again. The Italian, Spanish and Portuguese lists inherited the Latin directly rather than borrowing it. And Finnish owes it nothing at all.

All ten languages: zodiac signs in different languages.

• Zodiac Signs in Portuguese: All 12 Names
• Zodiac Signs in Japanese: All 12 Names & Meanings