aerodrome

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   chiefly British: an area from which aircraft operate, including its runways and associated buildings; an airfield

   The rescue helicopter returned to the coastal aerodrome before dusk.

2. 2
   noun

   historical: a powered flying machine, especially one of Samuel Langley's experimental aircraft

   Langley's unmanned aerodrome completed two sustained flights over the Potomac.

Formed from aero- ("air") + -drome ("place for running"), modeled on words such as hippodrome. Samuel Langley used Aerodrome in the 1890s for his experimental flying machines; the word was then applied to ground used for aviation.

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