aviator

Etymology

It is borrowed from French aviateur,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} which the American Heritage Dictionary and Barnhart derive from aviation,^[4][5] and the OED and Etymonline from Latin avis (“bird”) and the suffix -ateur.^[2][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged compares the suffix of amateur.^[6] The Latin noun comes from Proto-Indo-European *awi- (“bird”).^[3][4] Dictionary.com analyses the English word as avi- and -ator, modelled on the French word.^[7] The noun aviation is recorded in English from 1866, from French aviation, coined in 1863.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The pilot of a flying machine: 1887, in a translation of Jules Verne's Clipper of the Clouds.^[2][5][3]

Semantic evolution

In its first years the word could also mean the flying machine itself: the OED records this sense from 1891, in the Brooklyn Morning Journal, to 1908.^[2][3][6] Feminine forms followed: aviatrice (1910), aviatress (1911) and aviatrix (1927).^[3] Collins now labels the pilot sense old-fashioned.^[8] In the United States the word was used from 1948 for spectacles, especially sunglasses, with a wire frame and large lenses like those worn by early pilots; since 1951 such glasses were themselves called aviators.^[2][9]

Timeline

• 1887 – the pilot of a flying machine.^[2][5][3]
• 1891 – a flying machine (until 1908).^[2][6]
• 1948 – attributive, of wire-framed glasses with large lenses (originally American).^[2]
• 1951 – plural, aviator glasses or sunglasses.^[2][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. (old-fashioned) The pilot of an aeroplane or airship: The aviator landed his biplane in a cow pasture.^[8][6][2]
2. A member of a country's air force.^[8]
3. aviators (plural): sunglasses or glasses with a thin metal frame and large lenses.^[6][2]
4. (obsolete, 1891–1908) A flying machine.^[2][6][10]

Word family

• aviator glasses

Related words

• aviation
• aviate
• aviatrix
• aviary

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
9. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
10. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press