pilota

Forms

pilota m or f by sense (masculine plural piloti, feminine plural pilote)^[1] Old forms are pedoto (Boccaccio), pedotta (Francesco da Barberino, 1314), pedotto (Giovanni Villani) and piloto, still used in literature.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[3][5] The prevailing view, held by Corominas and Castellani and followed by Nocentini, Battisti and Alessio and Devoto–Oli, is that it is borrowed from Byzantine Greek *pēdṓtēs (“helmsman”), from Ancient Greek πηδόν (pēdón, “oar blade, rudder”).^{[3][6][2][4][7][1]} The word appears first as Medieval Latin pedota in Crete in 1271 and in Venice in 1311, and Old Italian pedoto and Old Italian pedotta took their vowel from piede (“foot”).^[3][6] The forms with ⟨i⟩ show the Byzantine pronunciation of /ē/ as /i/;^[6][1][8] Nocentini explains the /l/ as a replacement of intervocalic /d/, while Wiktionary and Prati think of the influence of pileggiare (“to sail”).^[6][1][8] Medieval Latin pillotus is recorded at Genoa in the 13th century.^[2][9]

Manlio Cortelazzo objected that the early pilot was the guide who took ships in and out of harbour rather than the helmsman, and proposed an unattested Ancient Greek *pylṓtēs from Ancient Greek πύλη (pýlē, “gate”), the harbour entrance;^{[3][6][5][10]} GRADIT and Sabatini–Coletti follow him.^{[3][6][5][10]} Castellani answered that the Greek word means “gate”, not “harbour”, and does not explain the Venetian form pedota.^[6]

From Italian the word passed to French pilote, first recorded in 1339, to Spanish piloto, Catalan pilot and Modern Greek πιλότος (pilótos), and through French to English pilot, recorded from the 1510s.^{[6][2][11][12]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Boccaccio, who died in 1375, has piloto and pedoto for the man who steers a ship during the voyage;^[3][5][2] GRADIT dates the word to the Decameron, 1348–53.^[3][5][2] The form pilota is first found in Ariosto in 1532.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Prati insists that the pilota was properly the man who guides ships into and out of harbours, rivers and difficult passages, not the helmsman, and that the pilot of an aircraft owes his name to the looser sense.^[8][3] In the 17th century Lorenzo Lippi used piloto for a dull man who stands idle.^[2]

With the motor age the word was transferred to the driver of a train through a dangerous stretch (1922), to the pilot of an aircraft (1914, in the Corriere della sera) and to the driver of a racing car (1942).^[3][11] In the 1930s and 1940s it began to be used after nouns as an invariable adjective for something that serves as a guide or a trial model: impianto pilota (1938) and partito pilota (1948, Giuseppe Dossetti), a calque of English uses such as “pilot engine”.^[3][2]

Timeline

• 1271 – Medieval Latin pedota is recorded in Crete.^[3]
• 1314 – Francesco da Barberino has pedotta.^[3]
• 1339 – French pilot is first recorded.^[11]
• 1348–1353 – Boccaccio's Decameron has the word.^[5]
• 1532 – Ariosto uses pilota.^[3]
• 1510s – English pilot is recorded, through French.^[12]
• 1813 – Pilotare is recorded of ships.^[3]
• 1914 – Pilota is used of the pilot of an aircraft.^[3]
• 1938 – Impianto pilota, a pilot plant, is recorded.^[3]
• 1942 – Pilota is used of a car driver.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pilot, someone qualified to fly an aircraft, a helicopter or a spacecraft: Il pilota ha annunciato l'atterraggio.^[5][4][10]
2. A racing driver of cars, motorcycles or motorboats; in a bobsleigh, the member of the crew who steers.^[5][4][13]
3. (nautical) A harbour pilot, authorised to board ships and steer them in and out of harbours and channels; formerly, the officer who directed a ship's navigation.^[5][4][13]
4. (railways) A shunter who helps the engine driver in movements within a station.^[5][10]

Adjective

1. (invariable, after a noun) Serving as a guide: nave pilota.^[5][10][13]
2. (invariable, after a noun) Experimental, serving as a model: un progetto pilota.^[5][10][13]

Word family

• pilotaggio
• pilotare
• pilotina
• copilota
• pilotino

Related words

• French pilote
• English pilot

Usage notes

The noun is masculine or feminine according to the person (il pilota, la pilota; plural piloti, pilote).^[1][10] Pilota automatico is “autopilot”, and pesce pilota the pilot fish.^[5][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 2923
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
4. ^ a b c d e Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 778
9. ^ Battaglia, Salvatore; Bàrberi Squarotti, Giorgio (1961–2002), Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, 21 vols., Torino: UTET; digital ed. Accademia della Crusca, p. 13, 482
10. ^ a b c d e f g Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b c Stammerjohann, Harro, et al. (2008), Dizionario di italianismi in francese, inglese, tedesco, Firenze: Accademia della Crusca; online at difit.italianisticaonline.it
12. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ a b c d e Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli