Talk:cockpit
Etymology[edit]
Etymology: could the source of cock in the word come from the French coque?
- Highly doubt it. Cock (as in the male bird, which is where this term is derived from) has Germanic root, so I don't think it has anything to do with the French word. Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 03:24, 30 September 2014 (UTC)
Currently, in the etymology section the following is written: "cock + pit. This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term." Imagine that part of an English word's etymology is the French term "chou-fleur"; if appropriate, in the etymology section for that English word it would say "[...] chou-fleur ('cauliflower') [...]". Does this practice apply to English words that are formed from other English words? Consider the senses of the word "cock":
- a male bird
- a mechanism for controlling flow in plumbing (as in "stopcock" and "petcock")
- a firearm trigger mechanism's hammer
- an arrow or crossbow's notch
- a penis
- etc.
Info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockpit#Etymology --Spunionztastic (talk) 06:48, 21 August 2018 (UTC)
The article doesn't answer my etymology question, which is 'why is a plane cockpit called a cockpit at all?'. Is it because it's small enough for chickens to fight each other? (This feels a bizarre reason, but the page only tells me the etymology is 'cock + pit', which is by no means educational. — This unsigned comment was added by 82.45.206.189 (talk) at 22:21, 3 July 2023 (UTC).
- I think "cock + pit" is minimal but enough explanation for what seems to be the oldest sense of the word - "pit for cockfighting". Ideally the etymology section should also explain how the other senses developed - this is still lacking.
- As to why cockpit means what it means in regard to aircraft, https://www.etymonline.com/word/cockpit has some explanation. It doesn't mention "coque" at all. I don't know how trustworthy Etymonline is, though.
- I agree that saying "cock has Germanic root" doesn't sound quite enough to entirely reject the "coque" theory, because something like reanalysis could have happened and the current spelling might not accurately reflect the origin. Whym (talk) 12:10, 26 October 2023 (UTC)