Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The difference in longitude between two positions as a result of a movement to the west.
- n. Progress toward the west.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Space or distance westward; space reckoned from one point to another westward from it; specifically, in plane sailing, the distance, expressed in nautical miles, which a ship makes good in a westerly direction; a ship's departure when sailing westward. See departure, 5.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Naut. & Surv.) The distance, reckoned toward the west, between the two meridians passing through the extremities of a course, or portion of a ship's path; the departure of a course which lies to the west of north.
Etymologies
- From west. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I'z just "westing". . . some bears hibernate longer than others.”
“Here we were, well abreast and reeling off westing.”
“The regular passage is far to the east around Staten Island, which means a loss of westing, and here, at the tip of the world, where the great west wind, unobstructed by any land, sweeps round and around the narrow girth of earth, westing is the thing that has to be fought for mile by mile and inch by inch.”
“Well, this is running your westing down if anybody should ride up in a go-devil and ask you.”
“Whether the mate's face was clean or dirty had no bearing upon westing.”
“He, in turn, was haunted by one thought of action, a sailing direction for the Horn: Whatever you do, make westing! make westing!”
“Secretly, he pledged himself anew to the Powers of Darkness, if they would let him make westing.”
“All Saturday and Saturday night the Mary Rogers raced her westing.”
“Ordinarily this lavatarial dereliction would have caught Captain Cullen's eye and vocabulary, but in the present his mind was filled with making westing, to the exclusion of all other things not contributory thereto.”
“Powers of Darkness for a bit of westing, for a slant to take him around.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘westing’.
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phrontistery-w
from phrontistery.info
wack, wadmal, waftage, wafture, wagonette, wagtail, wainage, wainscot, wair, waits, wakerife, waldflute and 282 more...
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some words
phatic, macerate, amanuenses, theophagy, seraglio, gloaming, geophagy, metaphone, anastrophe, neologism, tetragrammaton, bête noire and 568 more...
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Quenelles of Random Palavery
More randomly-garnered terms from the world of words that don't quite yet fit into my other lists.
Goddidit, barcelona, filigrain, good-natured, ill-natured, half-bit, endosome, underplaying, parotid, denormalization, sleightgeist, wheezing and 2334 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for westing.
john From the title of a great album. TFD has an actual definition: "The difference in longitude between two positions as a result of a movement to the west." Dec 13, 2006