Mayday

noun

noun ·2 syllables ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An international distress signal used by shipping and aircraft.

    ""Odd that she hasn't sent out a Mayday." "That is curious. Her radio must be disabled.""

  2. 2
    Alternative form of mayday. alt-of, alternative
  3. 3
    an internationally recognized distress signal via radiotelephone wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
air-raid alarmalarmalarm bellalarm clockalarm signalalarum

Example

More examples

"Only the other day in a railway accident, without the time to send out a mayday, many people lost their lives."

Etymology

From the distress signal mayday, from French m'aider, short for Venez m'aider! (“Come to help me!”).

Related phrases

distress signalpan panradio silence

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.