Aviation

How to spell aviation

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce aviation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does aviation mean?

1. nounThe design, manufacture, and operation of aircraft, or the activity of flying them.

Aviation in a sentence

• After leaving the air force she built a career in commercial aviation.

• The museum has a whole hall devoted to the history of aviation.

Where does aviation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin avis, which simply meant 'bird', the same root that gives us 'aviary' and 'avian'. The modern term was coined in French as 'aviation' in 1863 by the writer and pioneer Guillaume de La Landelle, who was working alongside early experimenters dreaming of human flight. The French built it from the Latin root plus the familiar ending -ation, which marks an action or process, so the literal sense is something like 'bird-like activity', that is, flying. English adopted the word almost immediately in the 1860s and 1870s, well before powered aircraft actually existed, and it became firmly established once the Wright brothers flew in 1903. The spelling trap for many writers is the bare 'avi' opening; because the 'a' and 'i' are pronounced as separate clear vowels rather than blended, the link back to avis, the bird, is a useful anchor.

How the word is built

• avi- (from Latin avis: bird)
• -ation (noun suffix meaning action or process)