great-circle arc

great-circle arc noun: a segment of a great circle.

Noun

great-circle arc (plural great-circle arcs)

a segment of a great circle
- This causes a greater deviation of the ground trace from a great-circle arc due to the increased effect of Earth's rotation.2006, Irfan Ali, Pierino G. Bonanni, Naofal Al-Dhahir, John E. Hershey, Doppler Applications in LEO Satellite Communication Systems, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 66
- The two axes connected by the solid but incomplete great-circle arc were measured along a single sahlfold axial surface on opposite sides of a tubular fold ; ...2012, E. Hansen, Strain Facies, Springer Science & Business Media, →ISBN, page 85

... it may be swung in a meridian-plane, and a great-circle arc having a radial pivot in said meridian-plane, ...1898, Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office:
Any great-circle arc of length #92;theta between zero and #92;pi is uniquely identified by its two end points, say a and b.2002, Leo Dorst, Chris Doran, Joan Lasenby, Applications of Geometric Algebra in Computer Science and Engineering, Springer Science &...

plural	great-circle arcs
alternative form	great circle arc

What does great-circle arc mean?: Great-circle arc means a segment of a great circle.
How do you use great-circle arc in a sentence?: ... it may be swung in a meridian-plane, and a great-circle arc having a radial pivot in said meridian-plane, ...
What part of speech is great-circle arc?: Great-circle arc is a noun.
What is the plural of great-circle arc?: The plural of great-circle arc is great-circle arcs.

Adapted from Wiktionary: great-circle arc (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: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “great-circle arc.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/great-circle_arc. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.