airfoil

[ air-foil ]
See synonyms for airfoil on Thesaurus.com
nounAeronautics.
  1. any surface, as a wing, aileron, or stabilizer, designed to aid in lifting or controlling an aircraft by making use of the air currents through which it moves.

Origin of airfoil

1
First recorded in 1920–25; air1 + foil2

Words Nearby airfoil

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use airfoil in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for airfoil

airfoil

/ (ˈɛəˌfɔɪl) /


noun
  1. US and Canadian a cross section of an aileron, wing, tailplane, or rotor blade: Also called: aerofoil

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for airfoil

airfoil

[ ârfoil′ ]


  1. A structure having a shape that provides lift, propulsion, stability, or directional control in a flying object. An aircraft wing provides lift by causing air to pass at a higher speed over the wing than below it, resulting in greater pressure below than above. Propellers are airfoils that are spun rapidly to provide propulsion. See more at Bernoulli effect. See Note at aerodynamics.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.