Noun: pilot
| Singular | pilot |
| Plural | pilots |
Sample Sentences
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They scud before the wind, and sail in open sea.
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Ahead of all the master pilot steers;
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And, as he leads, the following navy veers. [1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC:]
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So we mounted our horses, and put out for that town, under the direction of two friendly Creeks we had taken for pilots. [1834, David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, E. L. Cary and A. Hart, page 43]
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We would like to run a pilot in your facility before rolling out the program citywide.
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“I agreed with my husband when he said that to do the business properly we must do a pilot first.” [2018, Tsitsi Dangarembga, This Mournable Body, Faber & Faber (2020), page 40:]
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I think her biggest deal was she starred in a pilot.[…]Well, the way they pick TV shows is they make one show. That show's called a pilot. Then they show that one show to the people who pick shows, and on the strength of that one show, they decide if they wanna make more shows. [1994, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Jules (Samuel L. Jackson):]
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Julia has become quite a good kite pilot. She has learned how to repeatedly buzz her father's head, coming within two feet, and not hitting him. [2003, John P. Glaser, A Father's Collage, page 31:]
Nouns inflected like pilot
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle French pilot, pillot, from Italian pilota, piloto, older also pedotta, pedot(t)o (the form in pil- is probably influenced by pileggiare (“to sail, navigate”)); ultimately from unattested Byzantine Greek *πηδώτης (*pēdṓtēs, “helmsman”), from Ancient Greek πηδόν (pēdón, “blade of an oar, oar”), hence also Ancient and Modern Greek πηδάλιον (pēdálion, “rudder”). See: Italian Nouns '
pilota', Ancient Greek Nouns '
πηδόν'.