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cockpit

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Definition of cockpit

noun

1a compartment for the pilot, and sometimes also the crew, in an aircraft or spacecraft.
the driver’s compartment in a racing car.
a space for the helmsman in some small yachts.

2a place where cockfights are held.
a place where a battle or other conflict takes place: most conventional army training takes place on the cockpit of Salisbury Plain

Origin:

late 16th century (in cockpit (sense 2)): from cock¹ + pit¹. cockpit (sense 1) dates from the early 20th century and derives from an early 18th-cent. nautical term denoting an area in the aft lower deck of a man-of-war where the wounded were taken, later coming to mean 'the ‘pit’ or well from which a yacht is steered'; hence the place housing the controls of other vehicles

cockpit in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of cockpit in the US English dictionary

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