Circumnavigation

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The act of circumnavigating, or sailing round. countable, uncountable

    "Under our new World may alſo be compriſed thoſe vaſt Southern Coaſts and Streights of Magelan, firſt lighted on by Ferdinandus Magelanus in the year 1520, in his Circumnavigation of the Univerſe ; which forty five years after Sir Francis Drake, and next Sir Thomas Bendiſh, Engliſhmen, made a furhter inſpection into ; and in the Year 1600 Oliver van Noord a Hollander paſt, but of later years a Spaniard, Fedinand de Quier, out-ſhot them all by a more ample Diſcovery then all the former."

  2. 2
    traveling around something (by ship or plane) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
boatingcanoeingcirclingcircuitrycircularitycirculation

Example

More examples

"He began his circumnavigation of the world in a sailing boat."

Etymology

From circum- + navigation.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.