Word.ws English Dictionary

Airspeak

Airspeak noun: a controlled form of natural language based on English and designed to facilitate communication between aircraft pilots and air traffic controllers.

Noun

Airspeak (uncountable)

  1. A controlled form of natural language based on English and designed to facilitate communication between aircraft pilots and air traffic controllers.
    • It is always, apparently, the UK, US and Australian aircrews who are criticised for going outside the codified bounds of 'airspeak'.1983, Seatrade, volume 13, page 107
    • The advantage of a formalized language is rapid communication and the avoidance of ambiguity in applied settings tough, for instance, the use of "affirm" instead of "yes", and one request for "clearance to bypass your class" testifies to the inappropriateness of "Airspeak" as an acceptable mode of...1994, Gunilla Bradley, Human Factors in Organizational Design and Management-IV

Origin of Airspeak

From air + -speak.

Questions about Airspeak

What does Airspeak mean?
Airspeak means a controlled form of natural language based on English and designed to facilitate communication between aircraft pilots and air traffic controllers.
What part of speech is Airspeak?
Airspeak is a noun.

Words near Airspeak in the dictionary

  1. airsleds
  2. airsoft
  3. airsome
  4. airspace
  5. airspaces
  6. Airspeak
  7. airspeed
  8. airspeed indicator
  9. airspeed indicators
  10. airspeedometer
  11. airspeedometers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Airspeak (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Airspeak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/airspeak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.