'air-shipped' originates from English, specifically the compound 'air-ship' formed from 'air' + 'ship', where 'air' ultimately comes from Latin 'aer' (via Old French 'air') meaning 'air/atmosphere' and 'ship' comes from Old English 'scip' (and the verb sense 'to ship') meaning 'vessel' or 'to send by vessel'.

'air-ship' developed in the 20th century as aviation and airmail/air freight became common; the verb form 'to air-ship' (to send by air) arose from combining 'air' (transport by air) with the existing verb 'ship'; the past form 'air-shipped' followed regular English verb inflection.

Initially formed simply to denote 'sending by air' with the literal sense of transport by aircraft; over time it has remained close to that original meaning and is used both as a verb form and as an adjective describing goods transported by air.