rhumb

The Sailor's Word-Book

, or rhomb.


A vertical circle of any given place, or the intersection of a part of such a circle with the horizon. Rhumbs, therefore, coincide with points of the world, or of the horizon; and hence seamen distinguish the rhumbs by the same names as the points and winds, as marked on the fly or card of the compass. The rhumb-line, therefore, is a line prolonged from any point of the compass in a nautical chart, except the four cardinal points; or it is a line which a ship, keeping in the same collateral point or rhumb, describes throughout its whole course.

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