Etymology

aileron

A1I1L1E1R1O1N1

Today it means: The hinged part on the trailing edge of an airplane wing, used to control longitudinal turns. Full definition →

French aileron ← Middle French aisle ← Old French aile
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*h₂eǵ-?
  2. Proto-Indo-European*h₂eḱs-
  3. Proto-Italic*aksis
  4. Latinaxis
  5. Latin*axla
  6. Latināla
  7. Old Frenchaile
  8. Middle Frenchaisle
  9. Frenchaile
  10. Frenchaileron
  11. English todayaileron

Borrowed from French aileron, diminutive of aile (“wing”), also refers to the extremities of a bird's wings used to control their flight. It first appeared in print in the 7th edition of Cassell's French-English Dictionary of 1877, with its lead meaning of "small wing". In the context of powered airplanes it appears in print about 1908, in the French aviation journal L'Aérophile.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.