What does westing mean?
Westing is a rare noun meaning movement or a course toward the west. Its principal use is in navigation and sailing, where a vessel's westerly course may be described as westing. In broader literary use, it can refer to any sustained westward movement, though westward is usually more natural in modern English. The word has a specialized, slightly old-fashioned register and is encountered more often in nautical reports, sailing directions, and historical prose than in ordinary conversation. Westing also contrasts with easting, the corresponding term for movement or a course east. Because it names a direction as an activity rather than merely using the adjective westward, it gives nautical writing a compact and evocative vocabulary. The term is especially useful when reading older voyage accounts, where directions were discussed as deliberate courses rather than simply as places on a map.
nounMovement or a course toward the west, especially the direction of a ship's progress. It may also refer more generally to sustained westward movement.
- Movement or a navigational course toward the west.
"After the fog cleared, the navigator calculated the ship's westing and adjusted its course."
"After the fog cleared, the navigator calculated the ship's westing and adjusted its course."
"The expedition's account describes three weeks of westing along the Atlantic coast."
The plural is regular, although the word itself is uncommon outside specialized contexts.
"The navigator plotted two distinct westings from the island."
Before GPS, a captain could describe a route as an easting or a westing—a tiny word for choosing which way the horizon leaned.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of westing
Westing is an English formation from west and the suffix -ing, with the suffix expressing an action or process. West is an Old English directional term of Germanic origin and has close cognates in Dutch west and German West. In nautical usage, westing became a name for westward movement or a westerly course.
How westing is actually used
Chiefly a nautical and sailing term, with a specialized and slightly old-fashioned register in modern prose. It is less idiomatic than westward and usually refers to a deliberate course or sustained movement rather than merely a location in the west.
Easily confused with westing
Westward is an adjective or adverb meaning toward the west, whereas westing is a noun naming the movement or navigational course itself.