Pillions

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A seat or saddle attached behind a main seat for an additional passenger on a bicycle or motorcycle
2. A secondary seat designed for a rider, often positioned behind the primary seat in transport settings like motorcycles
3. An extra seating area that allows for another person to ride behind the main rider, commonly found on two-wheeled vehicles

Etymology: "Pillions" is the plural of "pillion," a noun for the extra seat behind a rider on a motorcycle or horse. The surprising part is that the word began as a blanket. It comes from Scottish Gaelic "pillean," meaning "little rug," and that in turn was borrowed from Latin "pellis," meaning animal skin or pelt. Riders once laid a folded cloth or fleece behind the saddle, and the name for that padding eventually came to describe the seat itself. The shift from cloth to seat is what makes the word worth knowing. A piece of cushioning placed behind the rider, something that could be rolled up and carried, gradually became the place where a passenger sat. The Latin root behind it, "pellis," is also the ancestor of words for skins and hides, so the whole family of meanings traces back to something as ordinary as a pelt.

Synonyms: passengers, riders, backseat riders, secondary riders, seat passengers