aeroplane
pronunciation
How to pronounce aeroplane in British English:
UK [ˈeərəpleɪn]
How to pronounce aeroplane in American English:
US [ˈerəpleɪn]
-
- Noun:
- an aircraft that has a fixed wing and is powered by propellers or jets
Word Origin
- aeroplane
- aeroplane: [19] The prefix aero- comes ultimately from Greek āér ‘air’, but many of the terms containing it (such as aeronaut and aerostat) reached English via French. This was the case, too, with aeroplane, in the sense of ‘heavier-than-air flying machine’. The word was first used in English in 1873 (30 years before the Wright brothers’ first flight), by D S Brown in the Annual Report of the Aeronautical Society – he refers vaguely to an aeroplane invented by ‘a Frenchman’.The abbreviated form plane followed around 1908. (An earlier, and exclusively English, use of the word aeroplane was in the sense ‘aerofoil, wing’; this was coined in the 1860s, but did not long survive the introduction of the ‘aircraft’ sense.) Aeroplane is restricted in use mainly to British English (and even there now has a distinctly old-fashioned air). The preferred term in American English is airplane, a refashioning of aeroplane along more ‘English’ lines which is first recorded from 1907.=> air
- aeroplane (n.)
- 1866, from French aéroplane (1855), from Greek aero- "air" (see air (n.1)) + stem of French planer "to soar," from Latin planus "level, flat" (see plane (n.1)). Originally in reference to surfaces (such as the protective shell casings of beetles' wings); meaning "heavier than air flying machine" first attested 1873, probably an independent English coinage (see airplane).
Example
- 1. Could a hamster survive a fall from an aeroplane ?
- 2. Just then the aeroplane veered off the runway and bounced .
- 3. When the aeroplane finally came to a halt , it seemed so orderly inside .
- 4. They haveeven been seen to travel along aeroplane aisles in mid-flight .
- 5. Aeroplane cargo faces even tighter restrictions on shape and size , not to mention the need for runways .