Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Pilot
/ˈpaɪlət/noun
A person who flies an aircraft, or one who steers a ship through difficult water.
The Greek roots
πηδόν
pēdón
blade of an oar, rudder
Literally: “one who works the steering oar”
Follow a root:πηδόν2 words
The story of the word
The word came up through Mediterranean shipping: Byzantine Greek pēdṓtēs, steersman, from pēdón, the broad blade of the steering oar, then Italian pedota and pilota, then French. In English it meant a harbour pilot for four centuries before the Wright brothers. Sea use kept its precision, since a pilot boards a ship that already has a captain and takes it through water only he knows. A pilot episode and a pilot plant borrow that sense of guiding a first attempt.
- How it travelled
- Medieval Greek → Italian → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
pilotageautopilotcopilot
In a sentence
The pilot came aboard off the headland and had us alongside in forty minutes.