Aeronautical

How to spell aeronautical

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce aeronautical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does aeronautical mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the design, construction, and operation of aircraft and to the science of flight.

Aeronautical in a sentence

• She earned a degree in aeronautical engineering before joining the airline.

• The museum displays early aeronautical instruments used by balloon pilots.

Where does aeronautical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is built from two Greek roots: aer, meaning 'air', and nautes, meaning 'sailor', the same element that gives us 'nautical' and 'astronaut'. The combining form was first joined in French as aeronaute, coined in the 1780s to describe the daring balloonists who 'sailed' through the air during the early experiments with hot-air and hydrogen balloons. English quickly borrowed 'aeronaut' and then formed the adjective 'aeronautical' by adding the familiar -ical ending, exactly as 'nautical' was built from nautes. As powered flight developed in the early twentieth century the word broadened from balloons to aircraft and the science of flight generally. The spelling trap lives at the front: the 'ae' opening preserves the original Greek vowel cluster, and the unstressed middle vowels in 'aero-nau-ti-cal' are easy to slur and misspell.

How the word is built

• aero- (air)
• naut (from Greek nautes: sailor)
• -ical (adjective suffix)