PARACHUTE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Parachute

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/pˈɛrəʃˌut/ Listen

noun

Parachute n.

A device made of a piece of cloth, usually silk, attached to multiple chords fastened to a harness; when attached to a person or object falling through the air, it opens from a folded configuration into an umbrella-shaped form, thus slowing the rate of descent so that a safe descent and landing may be made through the air from an airplane, balloon, or other high point. It is commonly used for descending to the ground from a flying airplane, as for military operations (as of airborne troops) or in an emergency, or for sport. In the case of use as a sport, the descent from an airplane by parachute is called sky diving. Some older versions of parachute were more rigid, and were shaped somewhat in the form of an umbrella.

(Zool.) A web or fold of skin which extends between the legs of certain mammals, as the flying squirrels, colugo, and phalangister.

verb

parachute v. i. TO descend to th ground from an airplane or other high place using a parachute; as, when the plane stalled, he parachuted safely to the ground.

golden parachute a generous set of financial benefits, including severance pay, provided by contract to a high-level corporate employee in the event s/he is dismissed or his/her job is lost in a corporate takeover or merger; also, the contract providing for such benefits.

drogue parachute a small parachute that is first released and opened in order to more reliably deploy a larger parachute. Also called drogue.

See images of 'Parachute'

Etymology of 'Parachute'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Parachute" Quotes from Famous Books

... Mr. J.H. Johnson patented a balloon and parachute dingus which worked on the principle of a duck's foot in the mud. I use scientific terms because I am unable to express myself in the common language of the vulgar herd. This machine had a tail which, under great ...

— Remarks • Bill Nye

... down very gently when the gas gives out." said the man. "It's almost like a parachute. Your children will come down like feathers. We'll get up a searching party and go after them." He knew there was great danger but he did not want to add ...

— The Bobbsey Twins at the County Fair • Laura Lee Hope

... away. Pop was poking into two of the large mound-shaped cases that were sitting loose and open on the right-hand seat, as if ready for emergency use. One had a folded something with straps on it that was probably a parachute. The second had I judged a thousand or more of the inch cubes such as I'd pried out of the Pilot's hand, all neatly stacked in a cubical box inside the soft outer bag. You could see the one-cube gap ...

— The Night of the Long Knives • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... it is on that mighty graveyard stretching from Switzerland to the sea that the enemy's eyes are bent. The regiments used to get various kinds of flares to experiment with. We used to laugh over an incident that occurred when a new type, a species of parachute, had been served out. The Second-in-command, who fired it, miscalculated the strength of the wind, which was blowing from the enemy's trench, and the flare was carried in a stately curve backwards until it was directly over battalion headquarters. Here it hung for a long time, ...

— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan

... "Squirrel," from the Latin "Sciurus" and Greek "Skia-oura" means "shady tail." Thus all of its names seem to note the wonderful banner that serves the animal in turn as sun-shade, signal-flag, coverlet, and parachute. ...

— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

More quotes...