joystick

American  

[joi-stik] / ˈdʒɔɪˌstɪk /

Or joy stick

noun

1. Informal. the control stick of an airplane, tank, or other vehicle.

2. Computers. a lever resembling this, used to control movement of a cursor or other graphic element for video games and computer graphics.

3. any leverlike switch for controlling, manipulating, guiding, or the like.

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joystick British  

/ ˈdʒɔɪˌstɪk /

noun

1. informal the control stick of an aircraft or of any of various machines

2. computing a lever by means of which the display on a screen may be controlled used esp for games, flight simulators, etc

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Etymology

Origin of joystick

First recorded in 1905–10; joy + stick ¹

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.

Example Sentences

Donning video headsets and armed with nothing more than a joystick and the Olympics’ fastest fingers, these maestros have the exact same objective as the athlete they’re filming: to be the best in the world.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 13, 2026

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

The joystick was sensitive to every movement and as I descended with the runway filling the windscreen very rapidly, correcting mistakes to stay on course became impossible.

From BBC • Feb. 20, 2025

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

I pulled the joystick to the right, weaving through the digital debris one final time.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline