Airplane

//ˈɛəˌpleɪ̯n// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A powered heavier-than-air aircraft with fixed wings. Canada, Philippines, US
  2. 2
    an aircraft that has a fixed wing and is powered by propellers or jets wordnet
  3. 3
    A game to encourage small children to eat, in which the parent or carer pretends a spoonful of food is an aircraft flying into the child's mouth. Canada, Philippines, US

    "So, he'd take a spoon and he'd start playing airplane, circling the spoon around in the air until it was ready to land in the runway of my mouth."

Verb
  1. 1
    To fly in an aeroplane. intransitive
  2. 2
    To transport by aeroplane. transitive

Synonyms

All synonyms
aeroplaneplaneadjustable propelleraeroplaneafterburneraileron

Example

More examples

"The Wright brothers succeeded in flying an airplane driven by an engine."

Etymology

From air + plane as an alteration of aeroplane.

Related phrases

airplane clothairplane earsairplane modehydro-airplanepaper airplanerubber band airplaneheavier than air

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