Plain English Meaning

Pretty much all flying that isn't an airline flight or a military flight. If you're learning to fly a Cessna at your local airport, you're part of general aviation.

Full Definition

All civil aviation operations other than scheduled airline flights and military flights. This includes private flying, flight training, business and corporate flights, agricultural flying, aerial survey, charter operations, and most light aircraft activity.

Context Anchor

Seen in FAA training books when describing the kinds of airplanes and flying most student pilots use during training.

Derivation

General' comes from the Latin generalis, meaning 'pertaining to all' or 'broad in scope.' The term was adopted to cover the broad category of civilian flying that didn't fit into the two more specialised buckets: scheduled airlines and military operations.