helicopter
- any of a class of heavier-than-air craft that are lifted and sustained in the air horizontally by rotating wings or blades turning on vertical axes through power supplied by an engine.
- to fly in a helicopter.
- to convey in a helicopter.
Origin of helicopter
Examples from the Web for helicopter
Contemporary Examples of helicopter
Employees strap a device to their heads and power a helicopter drone with their minds.
Du Pont would even fly his wrestlers to tournaments in his Learjet or helicopter.
After our helicopter crashed in the courtyard, Jimbo and I rushed inside the house.
Ten days later, it will start air missions using two airplanes and one helicopter.
At about 11 p.m. State Police started flying a helicopter over the scene, ordering the crowds to disperse.
Frat Culture Clashes With Riot Police at Keene, N.H., Pumpkin FestivalMelanie Plenda
October 19, 2014
Historical Examples of helicopter
The droning hum of the helicopter came across the broken ground.
InvasionWilliam Fitzgerald Jenkins
The sun was an hour high when the helicopter appeared to hunt for them by day.
InvasionWilliam Fitzgerald Jenkins
Dirk then stopped the plane and held it poised in the air with the helicopter.
They might throw him in jail or something might happen to the time unit or the helicopter.
Project MastodonClifford Donald Simak
The helicopter made a half-turn of the camp and came rapidly to Earth.
Project MastodonClifford Donald Simak
helicopter
- an aircraft capable of hover, vertical flight, and horizontal flight in any direction. Most get all of their lift and propulsion from the rotation of overhead bladesSee also autogiro
- to transport (people or things) or (of people or things) to be transported by helicopter
Word Origin for helicopter
Word Origin and History for helicopter
1861, from French hélicoptère "device for enabling airplanes to rise perpendicularly," thus "flying machine propelled by screws." The idea was to gain lift from spiral aerofoils, and it didn't work. Used by Jules Verne and the Wright Brothers, the word transferred to helicopters in the modern sense when those were developed in the 1920s. From Greek helix (genitive helikos) "spiral" (see helix) + pteron "wing" (see pterodactyl). Nativized in Flemish as wentelwiek "with rotary vanes."