cockpit

English

Etymology

From cock +‎ pit.

Noun

cockpit (plural cockpits)

1. The driver's compartment in a racing car (or, by extension, in a sports car or other automobile).
2. The compartment in an aircraft in which the pilot sits and from where the craft is controlled; an analogous area in a spacecraft.
   • 1984 September 3, Steve Harris (lyrics and music), “Aces High”, in Powerslave, performed by Iron Maiden:

     Jump in the cockpit and start up the engines / Remove all the wheel blocks, there's no time to waste

3. (now chiefly historical) A pit or other enclosure for cockfighting.
   • 1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, , London: W Taylor , →OCLC, pages 194–195:

     I obſerv'd a Place where there had been a Fire made, and a Circle dug in the Earth, like a Cockpit, where it is ſuppoſed the Savage Wretches had ſat down to their inhumane Feaſtings upon the Bodies of their Fellow-Creatures.

   • 2020 October 28, “Police officer raiding illegal cockfight gets killed by rooster”, in BBC News:

     Cockfighting has been banned during the virus outbreak. Before the pandemic, it was allowed only in licensed cockpits on Sundays and legal holidays, as well as during local fiestas lasting a maximum of three days […]

4. (figurative) A site of conflict; a battlefield.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     But pardon, and gentles all,
     The flat unraised spirits that have dared
     On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
     So great an object: can this cockpit hold
     The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
     Within this wooden O the very casques
     That did affright the air at Agincourt?

   • 2016, Peter Ackroyd, Revolution, Pan Macmillan, published 2017, page 170:

     India became the cockpit in which it was shown that trade was war carried on under another name.

5. (vulgar, slang) The vagina.
   • 1658, John Eliot, Poems, London: Henry Brome:

     If then the stone, as doctors tell the story, / Be a disease that prove hereditory, / I trust her daughter will have so much wit, / Early to get a cock for her cock-pit; / And rather then be barren; play the whore, / As her great mother hath done heretofore.

   • 1749, [John Cleland], “”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], volume II, London: G. Fenton  , →OCLC, page 191:

     […] ſo that her thighs duly diſclod'd, and elevated, laid open all the outward proſpect of the treaſury of love: the roſe-lipt ouverture preſenting the cock-pit ſo fair, that it was not in nature even for a natural to miſs it: […]

6. (Jamaica) A valley surrounded by steep forested slopes.
   • 1803, R. C. Dallas, Esq., The History of the Maroons: , volume 1, London: T. N. Longman and O. Rees, →OCLC, page 39:

     The grand object of a Maroon chief in war was to take a ſtation in ſome glen, or, as it is called in the Weſt Indies, Cockpit, encloſed by rocks and mountains nearly perpendicular, and to which the only practicable entrance is by a very narrow defile.

7. (nautical, now historical) The area set aside for junior officers including the ship's surgeon on a man-of-war, where the wounded were treated; the sickbay.
8. (nautical) A well, usually near the stern, where the helm is located.
9. (figurative) An area from where something is controlled or managed; a centre of control.

Synonyms

• (control area of an airplane): flight deck, office

Derived terms

• bathtub cockpit
• cockpit voice recorder, cockpit recorder
• glass cockpit
• greenhouse cockpit

Descendants

Translations

Anagrams

• Pitcock, cocktip

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English cockpit.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔk.pit/

Noun

cockpit m (plural cockpits)

1. cockpit

Further reading

• “cockpit”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From English cockpit.

Noun

cockpit m (definite singular cockpiten, indefinite plural cockpiter, definite plural cockpitene)

1. (aviation, nautical) a cockpit (of an aircraft or boat)

References

• “cockpit” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From English cockpit.

Noun

cockpit m (definite singular cockpiten, indefinite plural cockpitar, definite plural cockpitane)

1. (aviation, nautical) a cockpit (of an aircraft or boat)

References

• “cockpit” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Swedish

Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:

cockpit

Wikipedia ^sv

Etymology

Borrowed from English cockpit.

Noun

cockpit c

1. a cockpit (of an airplane)

   Synonym: förarkarbin

Usage notes

Sometimes treated somewhat like a proper noun, with for example "en orm i cockpit" (a snake in cockpit) instead of "en orm i cockpiten" (a snake in the cockpit), similar to English.

Declension

References

• cockpit in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• cockpit in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)