yaw

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. Nautical To swerve off course momentarily or temporarily: The ship yawed as the heavy wave struck abeam.
2. v. To turn about the vertical axis. Used of an aircraft, spacecraft, or projectile.
3. v. To move unsteadily; weave.
4. v. To cause to yaw.
5. n. The act of yawing.
6. n. Extent of yawing, measured in degrees.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To go unsteadily; bend or deviate from a straight course: chiefly nautical.
2. To move aside; move from one side to the other.
3. n. Nautical, a temporary deviation of a ship or vessel from the direct line of her course.
4. n. One of the tubercles characteristic of the disease known as yaws.
5. n. A thin or defective place in cloth.
6. To rise in blisters, breaking in white froth, as cane-juice in the sugar-works.

Wiktionary

1. n. The rotation of an aircraft, ship, or missile about its vertical axis so as to cause the longitudinal axis of the aircraft, ship, or missile to deviate from the flight line or heading in its horizontal plane.
2. n. The angle between the longitudinal axis of a projectile at any moment and the tangent to the trajectory in the corresponding point of flight of the projectile.
3. n. An act of yawing.
4. n. nautical A vessel's motion rotating about the vertical axis, so the bow yaws from side to side; a characteristic of unsteadiness.
5. n. The extent of yawing, the rotation angle about the vertical axis
6. v. intransitive, aviation To turn about the vertical axis while maintaining course.
7. v. intransitive, nautical To swerve off course to port or starboard.
8. v. intransitive, nautical To steer badly, zigzagging back and forth across the intended course of a boat; to go out of the line of course.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To rise in blisters, breaking in white froth, as cane juice in the clarifiers in sugar works.
2. v. (Naut.) To steer wild, or out of the line of her course; to deviate from her course, as when struck by a heavy sea; -- said of a ship.
3. n. (Naut.) A movement of a vessel by which she temporarily alters her course; a deviation from a straight course in steering.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. deviate erratically from a set course
2. v. swerve off course momentarily
3. n. an erratic deflection from an intended course
4. v. be wide open