great-circle sailing

American  

[greyt-sur-kuhl] / ˈgreɪtˈsɜr kəl /

noun

Navigation.

1. sailing between two points more or less according to an arc of a great circle, in practice almost always using a series of rhumb lines of different bearings to approximate the arc, whose own bearing changes constantly unless it coincides with a meridian or the equator.

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Example Sentences

Our voyaging is only great-circle sailing, and the doctors prescribe for diseases of the skin merely.

From Walden by Thoreau, Henry David