Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Autopilot
/ˈɔːtoʊˌpaɪlət/noun
A system that holds an aircraft, ship or car on course without a human at the controls.
The Greek roots
αὐτός
autós
self
πηδόν
pēdón
blade of a steering oar
Literally: “self steersman”
The story of the word
Both halves are Greek, though the second travelled in disguise: pilot runs back through Old French and Medieval Latin to πηδόν, the blade of a steering oar. Lawrence Sperry sold the idea in June 1914 at a Paris safety competition, flying past the judges with both hands in the air while his mechanic walked out along the wing. The shortened autopilot settled in during the 1930s, and the sense of going through the motions without attention is younger still.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Old French → English
- First recorded
- 1930s
Same family
pilotautomaticautonomyautograph
In a sentence
He engaged the autopilot somewhere over Crete and finally ate something.
She answered on autopilot and only registered the question afterwards.