Earth & SkyGreek → English
Rhumb
/rʌm/noun
Any of the thirty-two points of the compass, or the line a ship follows on a constant bearing.
The Greek roots
ῥόμβος
rhómbos
spinning top, lozenge
Literally: “spinning-top shape”
Follow a root:ῥόμβος2 words
The story of the word
The route is disputed. Most take it from Spanish or Portuguese rumbo, a ship's course, from Latin rhombus, and think the h in the English spelling was put back later by someone who knew the Greek; others argue the Latin geometric term is doing the work directly. ῥόμβος in Greek meant a thing whirled, a bullroarer or a top, and the lozenge shape came from the figure it traces. On old charts the rhumb lines fan out from compass roses in exactly those lozenges.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → Spanish → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
The same roots elsewhere
Other languages reached for exactly the same Greek pieces.
Same family
rhombusrhomboidloxodrome
In a sentence
He held her two rhumbs off the wind and the sails stopped shaking.