joystick
Americannoun
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Informal. the control stick of an airplane, tank, or other vehicle.
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Computers. a lever resembling this, used to control movement of a cursor or other graphic element for video games and computer graphics.
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any leverlike switch for controlling, manipulating, guiding, or the like.
noun
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informal the control stick of an aircraft or of any of various machines
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computing a lever by means of which the display on a screen may be controlled used esp for games, flight simulators, etc
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of joystick
Explanation
A joystick is a handle-like device that you use to control your character in a video game. If you want your character to move left, you generally move the joystick to the left. Originally, a joystick was the control an airplane pilot uses to adjust the movements of the plane — by moving the joystick back and forth, the pilot adjusts the roll, and moving it up and down controls the pitch of the plane's nose. Joystick was aviators' slang for this lever, and the makers of the earliest video games, in the 1970s, adopted the word for their similarly-shaped control.
Vocabulary lists containing joystick
Flying High: Aviation Words
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Ready Player One
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Video Game Vocabulary
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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:
A bank of screens shows the largely barren seabed, as an operator uses a multi-jointed joystick to operate the robot's hydraulic arm from thousands of metres above.
From Barron's ● Jan. 26, 2026
In Hover mode, the joystick provides fine-grained yaw control, allowing the BlackFly to execute its surreal pirouette.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2025
“They basically have a joystick controlling the robot dog as it walks around,” said Missy Cummings, an engineering professor at George Mason University who runs the university’s Autonomy and Robotics Center.
From BBC ● Nov. 16, 2024
His motorized wheelchair whirring to life, “Rocket Rod” Foster uses the joystick attached to the end of an armrest to roll forward inside his West Los Angeles apartment.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 11, 2024
The young Halliday drops his joystick and stands.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
Encord’s Hansen said that there are warehouses planned in Eastern Europe where large teams of operators will sit with joysticks, guiding robots across the world.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 2, 2025
The two joysticks accommodate righties or lefties, but you only use one to fly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2025
The European Union enforced a similar ban on video games and joysticks earlier this year.
From BBC ● Apr. 24, 2025
From the safety of a room hundreds of miles away, the drones’ pilots pushed forward joysticks to accelerate, steer and swivel deck-mounted cameras, keeping their target in sight.
From New York Times ● Dec. 20, 2023
Holly nodded, curling her fingers around the twin joysticks.
From "Artemis Fowl" by Eoin Colfer
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
