mayday
noun/ˈmeɪ̯deɪ̯/ · [ˈmeɪ̯deɪ̯]
Etymology From the distress signal mayday, from French m'aider, short for Venez m'aider! (“Come to help me!”). The term was conceived in the early 1920s by Frederick Stanley Mockford, officer-in-charge of radio at Croydon Airport in England. He had been asked to think of a word that would indicate distress and would easily be understood by all pilots and ground staff in an emergency. Since much of the air traffic at the time was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, he proposed the term "mayday," the phonetic equivalent of the French m'aider.
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An international distress signal used by shipping and aircraft.
- "Odd that she hasn't sent out a Mayday." "That is curious. Her radio must be disabled."2002, Clive Cussler, Valhalla Rising, page 47:
- The captain did a safety drill. This covered where the emergency position-indicating radio beacon (EPIRB) was located, how to make a mayday call, and where the fire extinguishers were. A crew member demonstrated how to put on an immersion suit. These survival suits are waterproof full-body garments with a hood and integral three-finger gloves and boots. They are bulky and hard to get on but far more likely to save your life in cold water than a lifejacket.2025 October 21, Rose George, “‘I knew in my head we were dying’: the last voyage of the Scandies Rose”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 03 Nov 2025:
- Related terms
- distress signal, pan-pan, SOS