While listening to Russian language radio yesterday I finally worked out the meaning of a word that kept on coming up: союз (soyuz) [sɐjˈʉs] , which is often used in the expressions Европейский союз and Евросоюз (European Union, EU).

It was obvious once I realised they were talking about Europe, and the word Soyuz is familiar as the name of the Russian spacecraft, and of the Russian version of the USSR, though I didn’t recognize it at first with it’s Russian pronunciation.

Союз means union, alliance, league or conjunction, and appears in expressions like:

– союзник = ally
– союзный = allied; conjunctive
– профсоюз = trade / labor union
– студенческий союз = students’ union
– Союз композиторов = Musicians’ Union
– Союз Советских Социалистических Республик (СССР) = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR)