Word.ws English Dictionary

unstart

unstart noun: a sudden compressor stall that can occur in the jet engines of supersonic aircraft.

Noun

unstart (plural unstarts)

  1. A sudden compressor stall that can occur in the jet engines of supersonic aircraft.
    • Jim Eastham, one of the original SR-71 test pilots, vividly remembers unstarts: “An unstart demands your full and undivided attention,” he recalls.1988 November, T. A. Heppenheimer, quoting Jim Eastham, “Mach 5 spy plane”, in Popular Science, volume 233, number 5, →ISSN, page 114
    • An unstart was usually a very unpredictable and violent manoever of the aircraft. […] At altitudes above 75,000 feet, aileron control may in ineffective in controlling the roll during an unstart unless the Angle of Attack is immedicately reduced. the instant an unstart occurs, the pilot's first...1996, Richard H. Graham, “Technical Features of the SR-71”, in SR-71 Revealed: The Inside Story, Zenith Imprint, →ISBN, Unstarts and Aerodynamic Disturbances (ADs), page 56

Forms of unstart

pluralunstarts

Origin of unstart

From un- + start.

Questions about unstart

What does unstart mean?
Unstart means a sudden compressor stall that can occur in the jet engines of supersonic aircraft.
What part of speech is unstart?
Unstart is a noun.
What is the plural of unstart?
The plural of unstart is unstarts.

Words near unstart in the dictionary

  1. unstarlike
  2. unstarred
  3. unstarring
  4. unstarry
  5. unstars
  6. unstart
  7. unstartable
  8. unstarted
  9. unstarting
  10. unstartled
  11. unstartling

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: unstart (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: “unstart.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/unstart. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.