Other forms: pilots, piloted, piloting
A pilot is the person who flies an aircraft. It is also, and originally, the person who steers a ship — and specifically the local expert who comes aboard to take a vessel through a difficult harbour.
The third sense is worth knowing because it is everywhere in work and television: a pilot is a trial version. A pilot scheme, a pilot study, the pilot episode of a series. To pilot something is to try it on a small scale before rolling it out. Note the odd little pilot light, the small permanent flame in a gas boiler that lights the main burner — named because it leads the way, which is what a pilot has always done.
1nounpilotThe person who flies an aircraft.
“The pilot came on and apologised for the delay.”
synonyms: aviator, flyer
2nountrialA trial version of something, tried on a small scale first.
“The scheme is running as a pilot in three schools.”
3nounsteersSomebody who steers a ship, especially through difficult water.
“A pilot came aboard at the mouth of the river.”
4verbtryTo try something out on a small scale.
“They piloted the app with forty users.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
pilot is a person who steers, or a trial run.
Ancient Greek pedon meant the blade of an oar, and a pedotes was the man who worked it — the helmsman. Through Italian pilota the word reached English as the steerer of a ship, and it transferred to aircraft the moment there were aircraft to steer.
Ancient Greek
πηδόν — blade of an oar, oar
Medieval Greek
*πηδώτης — helmsman
Italian
pilota
Middle French
pilot
English, today
pilot
Built from
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 Medieval Greek πηδώτης (“helmsman”), from Ancient Greek πηδόν (“blade of an oar, oar”), hence also Ancient and Modern Greek πηδάλιον (“rudder”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA