AEROPLANE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • 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

... War Office, M. Pgoud, inventor of "looping the loop," who was being congratulated by M. Messimy, Minister of War. He came here to get a new aeroplane, his own having been riddled through the wings by ninety-seven bullets and two shells when he was making a raid of one hundred and eighty miles into German territory. He naturally did not tell me where he went, but simply said he crossed the ...

— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard

... They call him Young Edison around here, and his right name is Archie Graham. His father was an aeronaut who was an expert on airships, got killed in an accident to an aeroplane last year, and left his son some little money. Young Graham has been dabbling in inventions since he was ...

— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman

... day a single walnut tree stump, grubbed out on the banks of a creek in Geary County brought the farmer $250. When the call of war came we found we had to hunt for black walnut to make gun stocks and aeroplane propellers. In some towns in Ohio, citizens cut the walnut from their streets so high was the price offered for this wood. So let us make trees, particularly nut bearing trees, the memorials or the proper ...

— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

... the appointed hour, a German aeroplane was flying over Paris dropping bombs. This would-be intimidation was producing no terror, the people accepting the visit as an interesting and extraordinary spectacle. In vain the aviators were flinging in the city streets German ...

— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... stayed three days as the guest of the Faculty and he didn't get up nerve enough in all that time to talk business. We saw him at chapel where he couldn't see us, and he looked like a man who had suddenly discovered, while falling out of his aeroplane, that somebody had removed the earth and had left no address behind. His baggage mysteriously appeared at his room in the hotel on the first night, and when he left he hadn't recovered consciousness sufficiently to inquire where ...

— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

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