aviator
(ˈeɪvɪeɪtə(r))
[ad. F. aviateur, f. L. avis bird + -ateur -ator.]
† 1. A heavier-than-air aircraft. Also attrib. Obs.
| 1891 Brooklyn Morning Jrnl. 22 July 1/6 (Funk), Mr. Maxim's invention is called an Aviator. It is in form like a huge kite of silk, to which hangs a platform carrying the engines and the screw propellers. 1895 Knowledge 2 Dec. 276/1 Mr. Maxim represents gunnery and the aviator flying machine. 1908 V. Silberer in Aeronaut. Jrnl. July 51/1 A flying machine or aviator, however well constructed and furnished with such a motor. |
2. a. The pilot of an aeroplane.
In early use, as distinguished from an aeronaut, i.e., a balloonist.
| 1887 [see aviate v.]. 1896 Westm. Gaz. 15 Sept. 1/3 Intending aviators and aeronauts. 1909 Ibid. 26 Oct. 1/3 Other ‘aviators’—the word has forced itself into the vocabulary, and it seems futile to resist it any longer—had other machines. 1911 Yorks. Post 3 Aug. 9/6 At height of 1,000 metres an aviator can find a submarine. |
b. aviator's (or aviators') ear = aero-otitis media; aviator's (or aviators') sickness, see aviation (quot. 1928).
| 1937 Aviator's ear [see aero-otitis media s.v. aero-]. |
| 1916 Sci. Amer. Suppl. 3 June 357/2 What distinguishes aviators' sickness from mountain sickness is that the symptoms persist during descent and are aggravated after landing. |
Hence ˈaviatress, -trice, -trix, a female aviator or pilot.
| 1910 Daily Chron. 5 Jan. 1/7 The aviatrice made a bad turn. 1911 Aero June 74/2 Various articles on the subject of ‘Aviatresses’ which have appeared from time to time. 1927 Glasgow Herald 29 Sept. 11 The English aviatrix, Miss Evelyn Spooner. |
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▸ orig. U.S. a. attrib. Of or designating spectacles, esp. sunglasses, typically having a wire frame and large lenses, similar in shape to those worn by early aviators; chiefly in aviator sunglasses, aviator glasses, aviator shades.
| 1948 Van Nuys (Calif.) News 15 July i. 8/4 (advt.) Army air corps type aviator glasses. 1975 New Yorker 17 Mar. 31/1 We..got a friendly greeting from a small, enthusiastic man of middle age who was dressed in the olive-colored uniform of the Parks Department (plus yellow aviator sunglasses). 1991 Observer (Nexis) 5 May 32 Tom Cruise in Top Gun may have boosted sales of Ray-Ban aviator shades by 40 per cent. 2002 L. Pontius Waking Walt iii. 19 His..eyes peered through quarter inch thick lenses set in outsized gold aviator frames. |
b. In pl. Aviator glasses or sunglasses.
| 1951 Bridgeport (Connecticut) Post 27 June 19 (advt.) Gold metal frames ‘Tru-site’ aviators. 1973 Los Angeles Times 1 Feb. 8/4 (advt.) Foxy frames–including aviators, wire rims, sleek metallics, wraparounds and more. 1985 New Yorker 19 Aug. 21/2 The man with the freshly barbered beard..the purple-tinted aviators. 2003 Daily Tel. 29 July 15/1 Chloé's pink-tinted aviators, which are embossed with a diamanté heart. |