plane sailing
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English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Noun[edit]
- (nautical) A technique for navigation using planar geometry.
- 1735, Benjamen Martin, A New Compleat and Universal System or Body of Decimal Arithmetick[1], page 318:
- In Plain Sailing, or That by the Plain Chart, the Parts of a Triangle receive new Denominations.
- (nautical, proscribed) A technique for navigation using the assumption the Earth is flat.
Usage notes[edit]
The heart of the technique is finding the departure from the results obtained by assuming that the earth's surface is flat. This seems commonly forgotten and a definition often given is "navigation using the assumption that the earth's surface is flat". Justification can be found in The analectic magazine 1817.