aerodrome

Formed from aero- (from Ancient Greek ἀήρ, 'air') and -drome, a suffix from Ancient Greek δρόμος ('course, running'). The compound echoes Greek ἀεροδρόμος, 'traversing the air.'

Samuel Langley coined 'aerodrome' in 1897 for his flying machine itself, but that sense faded; the word survived instead for the airfield where such machines take off and land, its -drome shaped by analogy with hippodrome.

It shares its -drome ending with hippodrome, the Greek-derived word for a horse racecourse, which inspired the new coinage's structure.