Airplane

How to spell airplane

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce airplane

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does airplane mean?

1. nounA powered flying vehicle with fixed wings, kept aloft by the lift its wings generate.

Airplane in a sentence

• The airplane landed twenty minutes ahead of schedule.

• She watched the airplane taxi slowly toward the gate.

Where does airplane come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is a compound of 'air' and 'plane', and it took shape in the early twentieth century as powered flight became real. The 'plane' element traces back to the Latin planum, meaning 'a flat or level surface', a reference to the broad flat wings (the aerofoils or 'planes') that generate lift. 'Air' comes through Old French and Latin aer from the Greek aer, meaning the lower atmosphere we breathe. The British form 'aeroplane' kept the older Greek-style prefix aero- 'air', while American English simplified it to the plainer 'airplane' around 1907, and that streamlined version is the standard one in North America today. Because the two halves are such familiar everyday words, the spelling rarely trips writers up; the only real choice is which national form to use.

How the word is built

• air (the atmosphere/sky)
• plane (flat lifting surface, from Latin planum 'flat surface')

British and American spelling

Airplane is the American spelling. British English spells it aeroplane.