: an aircraft that has rotors at the end of each wing which can be oriented vertically for vertical takeoffs and landings, horizontally for forward flight, or to any position in between

Examples of tilt-rotor in a Sentence

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Operation Spider’s Web saw 117 attack drones, mostly small, relatively cheap tilt-rotor forward-person view drones, suddenly emerge from hidden crates inside trucks strategically parked near Russian airbases thousands of miles from Ukraine. Paul Iddon, Forbes.com, 2 June 2025 This is not the first time that an eVTOL has made such a transition flight with a pilot aboard, but the others by the likes of Beta Technologies and Wick Aero used aircraft with separate horizontal and vertical flight systems, while the S4 used a tilt-rotor system for both maneuvers. David Szondy, New Atlas, 29 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1961, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of tilt-rotor was in 1961

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Cite this Entry

“Tilt-rotor.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tilt-rotor. Accessed 26 Jul. 2025.

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