surveying

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

• noun The measurement of dimensional relationships, as of horizontal distances, elevations, directions, and angles, on the earth's surface especially for use in locating property boundaries, construction layout, and mapmaking.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The art or the process of determining the boundaries and area of a part of the earth's surface from actual measurement of lines and angles; the art of determining the form, area, surface, contour, etc., of any section of the earth's surface, and delineating the same on a map or plan.

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

• noun That branch of applied mathematics which teaches the art of determining the area of any portion of the earth's surface, the length and directions of the bounding lines, the contour of the surface, etc., with an accurate delineation of the whole on paper; the act or occupation of making surveys.
• noun geodesy.
• noun that branch of surveying which determines the forms of coasts and harbors, the entrances of rivers, with the position of islands, rocks, and shoals, the depth of water, etc.
• noun See under Plane, a.
• noun that branch of surveying which involves the process of ascertaining and representing upon a plane surface the contour, physical features, etc., of any portion of the surface of the earth.

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

• noun sciences Art and science of accurately determining the position of points and the distances between them.
• verb Present participle of survey.

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

• noun the practice of measuring angles and distances on the ground so that they can be accurately plotted on a map