Other forms: joysticks
A joystick is the stick with buttons used to steer a game or an aircraft. Grab the joystick, an arcade joystick, joystick controls.
It was the control column of an aeroplane first, from about 1910, and the gaming sense followed the arcade machines of the 1970s and 1980s. The arcade joystick with a ball top and a microswitch under each direction is still made and still preferred by some players. Note that why it was ever called a joystick is genuinely unknown, and the obvious guess is unproven.
1nounjoystickA stick with buttons used to steer a game or an aircraft.
“He moved the joystick to steer the little plane through the clouds on the screen.”
joystick is a control device.
Joy plus stick, first recorded about 1910 for an aircraft control column. Its connection to joy is unexplained, and the several suggested origins are all guesses.
From joy + stick. First attested around 1910 (as joy-stick) as the control stick on an airplane. Its relation to the word joy is unknown.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA