empennage

French empennage (“feathers of an arrow”)

empennage (plural empennages)

1. The tail assembly of an aircraft.
2. The feathers of an arrow or the tail fins of a bomb or rocket used to stabilize the longitudinal axis of the projectile parallel to the flight path.

From empenner +‎ -age.

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empennage f (plural empennages)

1. fletching
2. empennage

• “empennage”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.