dead reckoning
dead reckoning noun: a method of estimating the position of a ship or aircraft by applying estimates of the distance and direction travelled from a previously known position. In respect to ships/boats, it excludes the effect of wind and current on the vessel.
Noun
dead reckoning (countable and uncountable, plural dead reckonings)
- A method of estimating the position of a ship or aircraft by applying estimates of the distance and direction travelled from a previously known position. In respect to ships/boats, it excludes the effect of wind and current on the vessel.
- Earlier, airmail pilots relied almost entirely on visual navigation and dead reckoning, a method that sounds simple in theory, but required remarkable concentration and experience. A pilot would plot a route on a map, take a compass heading, estimate his airspeed, and calculate how long it should...2026 March 7, Sthitapragta Chakraborty, “America Once Built Giant Arrows to Guide Pilots Across the Country, and Some Still Exist Today”, in Skip Boring, archived from the original on 24 Jul 2026
dead reckoning meaning in Tamil
dead reckoning in Tamil
- நர் அளவு
Forms of dead reckoning
| plural | dead reckonings |
|---|---|
| alternative form | ded reckoning |
| alternative form | DR |
Origin of dead reckoning
Uncertain. Not short for deduced or deductive, but this belief explains the alternative spelling ded reckoning (which actually originated centuries later).
Questions about dead reckoning
- What does dead reckoning mean?
- Dead reckoning means a method of estimating the position of a ship or aircraft by applying estimates of the distance and direction travelled from a previously known position. In respect to ships/boats, it excludes the effect of wind and current on the vessel.
- What is dead reckoning in Tamil?
- Dead reckoning in Tamil is நர் அளவு. See Dead reckoning meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is dead reckoning?
- Dead reckoning is a noun.
- What is the plural of dead reckoning?
- The plural of dead reckoning is dead reckonings.
Words near dead reckoning in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: dead reckoning (page history and authors); dead reckoning (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-dead reckoning.oga.
Cite this entry: “dead reckoning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dead_reckoning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.