test pilot

American

noun

a pilot employed to test-fly newly-built aircraft.

test pilot British

noun

a pilot who flies aircraft of new design to test their performance in the air

"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

Etymology

Origin of test pilot

First recorded in 1925–30

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

test pilot

The agencies told him that Rush not only wasn’t an elite military test pilot, as he had claimed to the CIA, but he also held no pilot credentials at all.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 16, 2026

Air Force colonel with more than 27 years of experience as an instructor pilot, fighter pilot, and test pilot.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 11, 2026

Parmitano was a test pilot for the Italian Air Force before becoming a colonel, and was selected as an ESA astronaut in 2009.

From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026

Victor Glover is a former US Navy fighter pilot and test pilot who was selected as a Nasa astronaut in 2013.

From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026

There were only seven of them, and I didn’t know any of them, but some of my test pilot friends did, and told me stories about them.

From "Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story" by Michael Collins

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023