aeroplane: [19] The prefix aero- comes ultimately from Greek āér ‘air’, but many of the terms containing it (such as aeronaut and aerostat) reached English via French. This was the case, too, with aeroplane, in the sense of ‘heavier-than-air flying machine’. The word was first used in English in 1873 (30 years before the Wright brothers’ first flight), by D S Brown in the Annual Report of the Aeronautical Society – he refers vaguely to an aeroplane invented by ‘a Frenchman’.
The abbreviated form plane followed around 1908. (An earlier, and exclusively English, use of the word aeroplane was in the sense ‘aerofoil, wing’; this was coined in the 1860s, but did not long survive the introduction of the ‘aircraft’ sense.) Aeroplane is restricted in use mainly to British English (and even there now has a distinctly old-fashioned air). The preferred term in American English is airplane, a refashioning of aeroplane along more ‘English’ lines which is first recorded from 1907. => air
aeroplane (n.)
1866, from French aéroplane (1855), from Greek aero- "air" (see air (n.1)) + stem of French planer "to soar," from Latin planus "level, flat" (see plane (n.1)). Originally in reference to surfaces (such as the protective shell casings of beetles' wings); meaning "heavier than air flying machine" first attested 1873, probably an independent English coinage (see airplane).
双语例句
1. I didn't get a wink of sleep on the aeroplane.
我在飞机上没合一下眼。
来自柯林斯例句
2. The aeroplane was gyrating about the sky in a most unpleasant fashion.
飞机在空中盘旋，令人不堪忍受。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The centre of pressure moves rearward and the aeroplane becomes unbalanced.
气压中心后移使飞机失去平衡。
来自柯林斯例句
4. On the aeroplane I was befriended by a delightful German woman.
在飞机上，一位讨人喜欢的德国女士对我就像朋友一样。
来自柯林斯例句
5. The company was considered as a possible subcontractor to build the aeroplane.
