A word predating aviation potentially by thousands of years, "pilot"
currently connotes the operator of an aircraft. For example, the American
Heritage Dictionary defines pilot as "one who operates or is licensed to
operate an aircraft in flight." All modern English dictionaries, from the
Oxford English to the Merriam-Webster to the Gage Canadian, cite aircraft
in the first and primary definition of the word pilot, at least in its form
as a noun. Pilot is most commonly used as a noun, to denote a person who
operates a craft; when the word is used as a transitive verb its meaning
tends to be more general. Like many words in the English language, pilot
can be traced to more than one linguistic origin: its closest relative
seems to be the French word "pilote," which itself derives from the Italian
word "pilota." Therefore, pilot directly comes from the Romance languages.
However, the roots of the word can be traced farther, to Greek origins.
Most dictionaries concur that the English word pilot evolved from the Indo-
European and later Greek root words "ped," or "pod," meaning "foot." The
current usage of pilot has little to do with feet other than their shared
correspondence to transportation. Rather, the word evolved through ancient
nautical terminology: the Greek word "pedo" for foot transformed into
"pedon," referring to the foot-shaped and foot-like blade of an oar or a
rudder. This early nautical terminology offers the most feasible basis for
commencing a thorough investigation of the etymology of "pilot."
The word pilot was not used in connection with aviation until about
1848, according to the Bartleby.com citation of the 2000 edition of the
American Heritage Dictionary. However, because of the rapid technological
and social advancements in the aviation field, the word pilot still did not
commonly connote one who controls an aircraft until sometime after the
1950s, when com...