great circles
great circles is the plural of great circle.
Meaning of great circle
Noun
great circle (plural great circles)
- A circle defined as the intersection of the surface of a sphere and a plane which passes through the centre of the sphere.
- A segment of such circle representing the shortest distance between two points on the surface of a sphere.
- Wherever a navigator may be, it certainly would be to his advantage to be able to find the great circle, or shortest course, and the distance, to his port of destination, [....]1902, S. L. Penfield, “Use of the Stereographic Projection for Geographical Maps and Sailing Charts”, in American Journal of Science
- Synonyms:
- great-circle arc
Questions about great circles
- What is great circles the plural of?
- Great circles is the plural of great circle.
Words near great circles in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: great circles (page history and authors); great circle (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.
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Cite this entry: “great circles.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/great_circles. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.