easting, vbl. n.
(ˈiːstɪŋ)
[f. east + -ing1.]
1. Naut. ‘The course made good, or gained to the eastward’ (Adm. Smyth).
| 1628 Digby Voy. Medit. (1868) 91 For easting and westing, great diligence is required not to fall into error. 1684 Bucaniers Amer. ii. (1698) 169 My whole easting I reckoned to be now 677 Leagues and 1/3 of a league. 1748 Anson Voy. ii. iv. (ed. 4) 233 Without hailing in for the main to secure our easting. 1781 Blagden in Phil. Trans. LXXI. 339 We..made some easting to keep clear of the dangerous shoals. 1802 Playfair Illustr. Hutton. The. 230 To compute from the observed bearings the amount of all the..easting or westing. 1860 L. Bilton in Merc. Mar. Mag. VII. 289, I ran down my easting in 38° S. |
2. An approach to an easterly direction; a sloping or veering eastwards. Of a wind or ocean current: A shifting eastward of the point of origin; easterly direction.
| 1855 Maury Phys. Geog. Sea vii. §344 That diurnal rotation does impart easting to these winds there is no doubt. 1862 Dana Man. Geol. 539 In Maine the courses [of the rock-groovings] have an unusual amount of easting. 1865 Pall Mall G. 25 Aug. 11/1 This very gregale..has there [at Malta] decided easting in it, and may well have blown St. Paul from Crete thither. |
3. Of a heavenly body: The reaching the eastern point of its apparent daily path.
| 1883 Proctor Gt. Pyramid iii. 139 The easting, southing, westing, and northing of heavenly bodies. |
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Add: [1.] b. Cartogr. and Surveying. The distance east of a given meridian; hence, a unit of measurement used in calculating this, expressed as the first co-ordinate of a grid reference, etc.; also, the co-ordinate or reference itself. Cf. *northing vbl. n. 3.
| 1767, etc. [see *southing vbl. n. 3]. 1820 J. Gummere Treat. Surveying (ed. 3) 113 Add up the northings and southings, and if the sums are not equal, find their difference... Proceed in the same manner with the eastings and westings. 1902 J. Whitelaw Surveying ii. 93 The most accurate method of plotting is..to calculate the latitudes and departures, or northings, southings, eastings, westings, as they are also called, of each of the lines. 1938 [see *northing vbl. n. 3]. 1980 W. A. Seymour Hist. Ordnance Survey xxvii. 269 The false origin, adopted to ensure that all grid eastings are positive and that grid northings..do not exceed one million metres, is 400 km west and 100 km north of the true origin. 1987 London Archaeologist Winter 361/2 It is the accepted practice to read eastings before northings. |