pilot
Pluralpilots
Pluralpilots
Formspilots, piloting, piloted
- 1A person who operates the controls of an aircraft.
The pilot guided the jet smoothly onto the runway.
Two pilots share responsibility for long-haul flights.
Note
Aviation shares the steersman's vocabulary, and the verb proves it: the verb covers aircraft and watercraft alike, so a pilot flies a plane but also pilots it. In flight crews the word names whoever holds the controls. When two people share a cockpit, it is usually narrowed by a modifier. Without one, plain pilot means the person in command of the controls.
- 2A sample episode of a proposed television series, produced to decide whether the full series should be made.
Producers shot the pilot last spring and are waiting on the network's decision.
Several pilots were filmed that season, but only one became a series.
Note
Television's version of the trial run is a whole episode made to be judged. In Pulp Fiction (1994), Jules spells out the system: "they make one show. That show's called a pilot." Executives then decide on the strength of that one show. If the series is approved, the pilot typically airs as its first episode, so a pilot can be both a test and a beginning.
- 3
- 4Made or used as a test or demonstration of how well something performs.
The agency funded a pilot program to test the new recycling method.
Early data from the pilot phase convinced managers to expand the effort.
Similarexperimental, trial
Note
An adjective that only stands before a noun and never takes degrees: nothing is more pilot or very pilot. Its typical partners are run, plant, program, phase and scheme, as in a pilot run of a new factory. It is the attributive partner of the noun for a trial: one runs a pilot, or runs a pilot program.
- 5To control and direct an aircraft or watercraft.
Only experienced crew may pilot the tanker through the strait.
The astronaut trained to pilot the capsule during re-entry.
Note
The spelling trips people up: the t is not doubled, so it is piloted and piloting, never pilotted. The verb takes the craft as its direct object. John H. Reed's 1975 Transportation Safety Board report boasts of having "piloted a Lockheed 1011 from MIA to LAX." The same construction serves for boats, as in piloting a tanker through a strait.
- 6A person who knows the depths and currents of a harbor or coast well, and is hired by a vessel to help navigate the area.
A pilot boarded the tanker at dawn to guide it past the sandbars into port.
Local pilots spend years memorizing every shoal and current in the bay.
- 7A person who steers a ship, also called a helmsman.
The pilot gripped the wheel, holding course through the heavy swell.
On old sailing ships, the pilot steered by the stars at night.
Note
The steersman at the helm carries the word's history: English took pilot from Middle French pilot, pillot, which came from Italian pilota. Older Italian said pedotta, and the pil- spelling was probably shaped by pileggiare, "to sail, navigate." In Dryden's Virgil of 1697, "the master pilot steers" at the head of the fleet. Keep it distinct from the hired harbor expert, who brings local knowledge aboard.
- 8A person who guides or escorts others through an unfamiliar or dangerous area.
A local pilot led the expedition through the treacherous mountain passes.
Without a trusted pilot, the smugglers would never have crossed the marshes.
Note
Here the sea-word comes ashore, and the guide's knowledge is of terrain rather than channels. David Crockett's Narrative of 1834 shows it on horseback: his party rode out "under the direction of two friendly Creeks we had taken for pilots." The phrasing take someone for a pilot means engaging them as a guide. It echoes the harbor pilot hired for local knowledge.
- 9A small, continuously burning flame used to ignite a larger burner, as in a gas appliance.
When the pilot flickers out, the gas furnace shuts off automatically.
A draft from the window kept blowing out the stove's pilot.
Note
A clipped form: pilot light shortened to its first word once the meaning was clear from context. The full phrase is built on the "controlling" adjective, since the small flame exists to set off a larger one. Around stoves, furnaces and water heaters, the bare noun is natural (the pilot went out). In other settings, the full pilot light avoids confusion with the person.
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- 12Something that serves as a test or trial before a larger effort.
The new menu started as a pilot in three restaurants.
Management treated the first month as a pilot for the wider rollout.
Similartrial, test, experiment
Note
As a noun, the trial usually comes with light verbs: you run a pilot or do a pilot, often before a wider rollout. In Tsitsi Dangarembga's This Mournable Body (2018), a husband insists that "to do the business properly we must do a pilot first." The phrase is everyday business English, at home in offices and kitchens alike.
- 13A driver who races motor vehicles in competition.
The pilot held a narrow lead going into the final corner.
Veteran pilots know exactly when to push their cars and when to hold back.
Note
European motor racing borrows the aviator's word for the person at the wheel of a race car. In English the usage keeps that continental flavor and appears mostly in racing coverage. Elsewhere, write racing driver, or simply driver, to avoid sounding as if the competitor were flying an aircraft.
- 14A vehicle that travels ahead of an oversize load to alert other road users to its approach.
The pilot pulled over to let oncoming traffic pass the oversized trailer.
Oversize convoys often require a pilot at both the front and rear.
Similarescort
Note
Australian road-transport talk shortens the full phrase to one word, so a pilot vehicle becomes simply a pilot. The clipped form is informal. In permits, regulations or other careful writing, use the full pilot vehicle, which builds on the adjective. The short form works best among people already talking about oversize loads, where no one will mistake it for an aircraft.
- 15A person authorized to drive an escort vehicle that warns traffic of an approaching oversize load.
A licensed pilot rode ahead of the convoy, radioing warnings about tight bends.
The company hired two pilots to escort the turbine blades across three states.
Similarescort
Note
Australian road transport uses the same word for the driver as for the escort car itself, so context has to separate them. A pilot who holds a license or is "accredited" is a person. A pilot that is parked or flashing its lights is the vehicle. The role is an authorized one: not anyone behind the wheel of an escort car qualifies.
- 16Designating a vehicle whose role is to warn other road users that an oversize vehicle or combination is approaching.
The convoy traveled with a pilot vehicle at the front flashing amber lights.
State law required a pilot escort whenever the load blocked more than one lane.
Similarlead
- 17Designating a component or signal that serves to control or activate another, larger device.
The furnace won't start because the pilot flame has gone out.
Engineers traced the fault to a faulty pilot relay in the control panel.
- 18A signal for controlling or synchronizing a communications system, most often transmitted at just one frequency.
FM stereo broadcasts include a 19 kHz pilot that the receiver uses to decode the channels.
The system locks onto the pilot to synchronize the two ends of the link.
Note
Telecommunications engineers often use it attributively, in compounds like pilot tone, pilot signal and pilot frequency, as much as on its own. The signal carries no message of its own. It is a reference that equipment locks onto for control or timing. That links it to the "controlling" adjective, since in both a small signal governs a larger system.
- 19A printed guide giving directions and information for navigating coastal waters, harbors, and other maritime routes.
The navigator opened the pilot to the chapter describing the harbor approaches.
The shelf held several pilots covering the entire western coast.
- 20The angled frame mounted at the front of a locomotive to clear obstacles from the track.
The locomotive's pilot deflected a tree limb that had fallen across the line.
Restorers repainted the pilot before the steam engine returned to service.
Similarcowcatcher
Note
On the railway, pilot is the name for the part more widely called a cowcatcher. It is the frame at the very front of the locomotive, leading the engine down the line. Railway writing prefers pilot, while cowcatcher is the vivid everyday word. The same railway setting gives the verb its locomotive meaning, where one engine leads another.
- 21To act as the leading locomotive on a train hauled by two engines coupled together.
The yard assigned an extra locomotive to pilot the overloaded coal train through the hills.
When grades steepened, lighter engines would pilot the heavier road locomotives.
Similarlead
Note
In railway usage, the subject is the engine, not the person driving it: one locomotive pilots a train by running at its head, ahead of a second engine. Railway reporting uses it in exactly that way, with diesel No. D5403 leaving "for the south piloting" another working. The construction belongs to railway enthusiasts' and operators' language.
- 22A short plug at the end of a counterbore, sometimes interchangeable, that fits an existing hole to guide the tool.
The counterbore's pilot fit snugly into the predrilled hole, keeping the cut concentric.
Machinists keep several pilots on hand to match different bore diameters.
- 23A small heading or excavation driven first, ahead of the work of creating a larger tunnel.
Engineers advanced a pilot ahead of the main bore to assess the ground conditions.
Water seeping into the pilot warned the crew before they enlarged the excavation.
Note
Mining gives the trial idea a physical shape. The small heading is cut first, and the full tunnel follows along the line it has opened. Driving is the tunneler's verb for advancing an excavation, so a pilot is driven, never dug. Its kinship with the "trial run" meaning is plain: the small bore goes ahead and shows what the large one will meet.
- 24An instrument used to detect and measure the error in a compass reading.
Before setting course, the mate checked the compass against the pilot.
The pilot revealed a small deviation that had crept into the magnetic compass.
- 25A person who flies a kite, controlling its movements with the line.
The pilot let out more line until the kite caught the steady wind.
Experienced pilots steered their kites through loops above the beach.
Note
Naming the kite keeps the meaning clear, since pilot alone suggests an aircraft. John P. Glaser's A Father's Collage (2003) calls his daughter "quite a good kite pilot," able to buzz her father's head within two feet without hitting him. The compound kite pilot is the safe form. It also suits the skill involved, which is steering, not just holding a string.
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Origin
It comes from Middle French pilot, from Italian pilota (older pedotta), and ultimately from an unattested Byzantine Greek word meaning 'helmsman', based on Ancient Greek pēdón, 'blade of an oar, oar'.