Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A rhumb line.
  • noun One of the points of the mariner's compass.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A vertical circle of the celestial sphere.
  • noun A point of the compass, a thirty-second part of the circle of the horizon, 11° 15' in azimuth.
  • noun The course of a ship constantly moving at the same angle to its meridian; a rhumb-line.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Navigation) A line which crosses successive meridians at a constant angle; -- called also rhumb line, and loxodromic curve. See loxodromic.
  • noun to sail continuously on one course, following a rhumb line.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun navigation A line which crosses successive meridians at a constant angle
  • noun navigation One of the 32 points of the compass (compass points)
  • noun navigation A unit of angular measure equal to 1/32nd of a circle or 11.25°

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a line on a sphere that cuts all meridians at the same angle; the path taken by a ship or plane that maintains a constant compass direction

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly from Spanish or Portuguese rumbo, course, direction, ultimately from Latin rhombus, rhombus; see rhombus.]

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Examples

  • Mercator also produced the first globe to have rhumb lines (1541), based on his observation that a ship sailing towards the same point of the compass would follow a curve called a loxodrome (also called a rhumb line or spherical helix).

    Mercator, Gerardus 2009

  • He paid close attention as the fleet set its course and steered along a rhumb line south-southwest from Sanlucar, running before a remarkably “steady and very sharp wind” nearly eight hundred miles down the coast of Africa, on a course for the Canary Islands.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • Historians have called these survey lines a rhumb de vent or rhumb line.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • He paid close attention as the fleet set its course and steered along a rhumb line south-southwest from Sanlucar, running before a remarkably “steady and very sharp wind” nearly eight hundred miles down the coast of Africa, on a course for the Canary Islands.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • Historians have called these survey lines a rhumb de vent or rhumb line.

    Champlain's Dream David Hackett Fischer 2008

  • In this rhumb the horizon is bounded by El – Harrah, the volcanic region whose black porous lavas and honey-combed basalts, often charged with white zeolite, are still brought down even to the coast to serve as mortars and handmills.

    The Land of Midian 2003

  • Thence he went leisurely up stream to the Bumina Rapids, and found the easterly rhumb of the river bending to the N.E. and the N.N.E.; its channel did not exceed 50 yards in width, and precipitous rock-walls rose on either hand.

    Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo 2003

  • The bush-path began by wheeling westward, as though we were returning to Anenge-nenge; thence it struck south-eastwards, a rhumb from which it rarely deviated.

    Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo 2003

  • This last information is obtained independently from what is called the NV90 programme of the computer which is able automatically to calculate the rhumb line track and distance between each of the respective waypoints once the co-ordinates have been fed into it.

    Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster C.A. 95/81 New Zealand. Court of Appeal

  • On looking at our binnacle, they pointed to the north-west rhumb, and made us easily understand that it was the course they always steered on their return to Macassar.

    Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 — Volume 1 Phillip Parker King

Comments

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  • See also rhomb.

    October 14, 2008