Cockpit

How to spell cockpit

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cockpit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cockpit mean?

1. nounThe enclosed space in an aircraft, racing car, or small boat where the pilot or driver sits and operates the controls.

Cockpit in a sentence

• The pilot ran through the safety checklist before anyone entered the cockpit.

• Every dial in the cockpit was lit up as the jet taxied to the runway.

Where does cockpit come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound of two very old English words. The first, 'cock', is the Germanic name for the male domestic fowl, and the second, 'pit', means a hollow or enclosed arena, also from Old English. In the late 1500s a 'cockpit' was literally a small sunken ring where spectators gathered to watch cockfights, a popular and bloody form of gambling. The word then took on the figurative sense of any cramped, busy enclosure and even a place of frequent conflict. By the 1700s sailors used it for the lower compartment of a warship where the wounded were treated, and from there it shifted to the sunken steering well of a small boat. When aircraft and racing cars arrived in the early twentieth century, the snug, enclosed seat for the pilot or driver naturally inherited the same name.

How the word is built

• cock (from cockfighting: the bird)
• pit (an enclosed arena or hollow)