Other forms: parachutes
A parachute is the big cloth umbrella that lets you fall from a plane slowly and safely. Open the parachute, a parachute jump, a reserve parachute.
It works by drag rather than by lift, and it brings a falling person down to about twenty kilometres an hour — survivable, and still a hard landing. Sport jumpers carry a reserve packed by a licensed rigger. The name is French for guarding against a fall.
1nounparachuteA cloth canopy that slows a fall through the air.
“The pilot jumped from the plane and opened his parachute.”
parachute is a safety device.
French parachute is para-, guarding against, plus chute, a fall. Parasol is built the same way.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱh₂d-
French
parachute
English, today
parachute
Built from
Borrowed from French parachute, from para- (“protection against”) (as in parasol) and chute (“fall”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA