Sunday Rest: nacelle. Word Not To Use Today.

I've often seen nacelles - from my desk I have a distant view of a fairly busy flight-path - but until a moment ago I've never known what I've been looking at.

Of course I knew you get nacelles on space-ships in the movies: the nacelle is over-heating - it's going to blow, Captain!

(Though I must say in the nacelles' defence that in films the nacelles rarely do blow: in fact I've seldom known them cause any but the most minor character so much as a bout of indigestion.)

Anyway. Nacelle. It's one of those cigar-shaped things stuck on the wings of aeroplanes. They can have engines or fuel or people in them, and are obviously jolly useful things.

And, in simple justice, I must admit that it's not their fault they have the name of a 1950s backing-singer, is it?


These Boeing 707 nacelles have engines in them.

Sunday Rest: nacelle. This word is French for small boat. Before that it comes from the Latin nāvicella, which is a diminuative of nāvis, ship.