AEROPLANE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Aeroplane

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noun

aeroplane n. (Aeronautics)

1.

A light rigid plane used in aerial navigation to oppose sudden upward or downward movement in the air, as in gliding machines; specif., such a plane slightly inclined and driven forward as a lifting device in some flying machines. Also called airfoil.

2.

Hence: A heavier-than-air flying machine using such a device to provide lift; an airplane. In a modern aeroplane, the airfoils are called the wings, and most of the lift is derived from these surfaces. In contrast to helicopters, the wings are fixed to the passenger compartment (airframe) and do not move relative to the frame; thus such a machine is called a fixed-wing aircraft. These machines are called monoplanes, biplanes, triplanes, or quadruplanes, according to the number of main supporting planes (wings) used in their construction. After 1940 few planes with more than one airfoil were constructed, and these are used by hobbyists or for special purposes. Being heavier than air they depend for their levitation on motion imparted by the thrust from either propellers driven by an engine, or, in a jet plane, by the reaction from a high-velocity stream of gases expelled rearward from a jet engine. They start from the ground by a run on small wheels or runners, and are guided by a steering apparatus consisting of horizontal and vertical movable planes, which usually form part of the wings or tail. There are many varieties of form and construction, which in some cases are known by the names of their inventors. In U.S., an aeroplane is usually called an airplane or plane.

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Etymology of 'Aeroplane'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Aeroplane" Quotes from Famous Books

... hate to be outwitted by one more clever than yourself, and perhaps that accounts for people disliking spies with a more deadly hatred than that which they bestow on a man who drops bombs from an aeroplane indiscriminately on women and children, or who bombards cathedrals with infernal engines ...

— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell

... be done, so we went on packing. An aeroplane was seen in the distance; everybody ...

— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon

... to be warmed up. Anybody would have admitted that a machine in the act of operating was a dynamic system in a solid group of objects, but nobody reflected that a stopped machine was a dead thing. Nobody thought to liken the warming-up period for an aeroplane engine to the days of playing before a disuse-dulled violin regained ...

— The Machine That Saved The World • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... furnished a sufficiently emphatic clue. "You poor, abused dear! Whenever are you coming home? If I had an aeroplane I'd fly up and carry you off. You must be nearly crazy! Those letters you wrote were the most TRAGIC things! I shouldn't have been a bit surprised any time to hear you were sick. Are you sick? Perhaps that's why you ...

— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist

... are shown the Proprietor leaving his private house by aeroplane to visit the office. We see him first alighting on the roof and then entering his private room by a secret door, from a secret staircase. Having removed his slouch hat and cloak and laid aside his dark lantern, he is revealed as ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various

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