Word Origin late 16th century (in cockpit (sense 2)): from cock1 + pit1. cockpit (sense 1) dates from the early 20th century and derives from an early 18th-century nautical term denoting an area in the aft lower deck of a man-of-war where the wounded were taken, later coming to mean ‘the ‘pit’ or well from which a yacht is steered’; hence the place housing the controls of other vehicles.
