where did the word "cockpit" originate for the place where a pilot sits to operate the controls of an aircraft

Answer 1

The first known reference to the term "cockpit" comes from the rather barbaric sport of cockfighting and refers to the pit in which the fights occurred. Shortly therafter, the word naturally attained a connotation as being related to any scene of grisly combat, such as European battlefields. By the end of the 16th Century, the term was being used to describe sunken pits or cramped, confined spaces. In particular, the word cockpit was used to describe the pit around the stage in a theater containing the lowest level of seats, as illustrated by this passage from William Shakespeare's "Henry V."
In so doing, Shakespeare may have been trying to draw an analogy between the spectacle of a cockfight or battle and that of a theatrical performance. An entire London theater even became known as The Cockpit in 1635, as did the English Trasury and Privy Council government buildings that were built on the same ground later in the 17th Century.

However, the more direct linkage to your question comes from the use of the term cockpit to refer to a compartment belowdecks on a British naval vessel beginning around 1700. The often cramped and confined compartment was placed below the waterline and served as quarters for junior officers as well as for treating the wounded during battle. Although the purpose of this compartment evolved over time, its name did not. Even today, a room on the lower deck of a yacht or motor boat where the crew quarters are located is often called a cockpit. In addition, the rudder control space from which a vessel is steered is sometimes called a cockpit since a watchman in the highest position is called a ****, and a cavity in any vessel is called a pit.

This sense of the word, as an often confined space used for control purposes, was first applied to an aircraft around 1914 by pilots during World War I. In keeping with this same meaning, the tightly confined control space of a racing automobile also became known as a cockpit by about 1935.

Answer 2

Cockpit as a term for the pilot's compartment in an aircraft first appeared in 1914 and from about 1935 cockpit also came to be used informally to refer to the driver's seat of a car, especially a high performance one, and this is official terminology in Formula One. The term is most likely related to the sailing term for the coxswain's station in a Royal Navy ship, and later the location of the ship's rudder controls.

Answer 3

The term cockpit comes from sailing ships. The anchor cables were stored in the compartment farthest forward, where sometimes the crew would go to have cock fights (roosters fighting as gambling) because the officers usually had no reason to go there.

The term came to be applied to the pilot's compartment of aircraft as well. Many nautical terms were applied and are still used - for example airplane locations are defined in terms of water line and buttock line as in ships.

Answer 4

Used to describe the scene of battle in cramped quarters and applied to World War I fighter planes.

Take a look at an excerpt from word-detective.com:
The first "cockpits" were actual pits in the ground constructed (to the extent that one "constructs" a pit) to house "cockfights" to the death between game cocks (essentially very belligerent chickens). Cockfighting, a barbaric "sport" usually conducted for gambling purposes, probably originated in ancient China and remains distressingly popular around the world.

As a name for the scene of such grisly matches, "cockpit" showed up in English in the 16th century. By the 1700's, "cockpit" was being used as a metaphor for any scene of combat, especially areas (such as parts of Belgium and France) known as traditional battlefields. "Cockpit" was then adopted by pilots in World War I, who applied it to the cramped operating quarters of their fighter planes. Our modern sense of cockpit includes the entire crew areas of large airliners, which are usually fairly spacious and not, one hopes, the scene of conflict.

Answer 5

It appears it is utilized as more than in an aircraft.

look in yahoo answers for WHY IS A COCKPIT CALLED A COCKPIT asked 3 weeks ago

Answer 6

Exactly where it sounds like it came from. In the early days of aviation only males were allowed to pilot aircraft. Think about it!