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aquaplane

aqua·plane/ˈækwəˌpleɪn/noun, verb

aquaplane is a noun meaning “A board on which a person stands to ride for leisure which is pulled on a water surface by a motorboat” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-Q-U-A-P-L-A-N-E and has 2 syllables (aqua·plane), and it appears about once in every 98 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of aquaplane is aquaplanes.

What does aquaplane mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A board on which a person stands to ride for leisure which is pulled on a water surface by a motorboat.

verb

  1. 1

    To ride for leisure standing up on a board pulled on a water surface by a motorboat.

  2. 2

    UKOf a car or other road vehicle: to lose traction with the road due to the vehicle's tyres sliding on a film of water on the road.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce aquaplane?

  • UK /ˈækwəpleɪn/
  • US /ˈækwəˌpleɪn/

As a verb (“To ride for leisure standing up on a board pulled on a…”): /ˈækwəpleɪn/, /ˈækwəˌpleɪn/, /ˌækwəˈpleɪn/.

Aquaplane has 2 syllables, split aqua·plane in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-aquaplane.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-aquaplane.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of aquaplane

  • aquaplanes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • aquaplaning participle, present
  • aquaplaned participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is aquaplane?

Aquaplane appears about once in every 98 million words in written English, the 317,168th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Aquaplane in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchaquaplane (board on which a person stands to ride for…), aquaplaner (of a car, etc.: to lose traction with the road…)
Portugueseaquaplano (board on which a person stands to ride for…), aquaplanar (of a car, etc.: to lose traction with the road…)
Spanishhacer aquaplaning (of a car, etc.: to lose traction with the road…)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does aquaplane come from?

The noun is derived from aqua- (prefix meaning ‘water’) + plane (“flat or level surface”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“flat”)). The verb is derived from the noun, and is analysable as aqua- + plane (“to glide; to soar; to skim a water surface”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).