What does "rhumb" mean?

A line which crosses successive meridians at a constant angle.

What is a synonym for "rhumb"?

Common synonyms include: loxodrome, rhumb line, rhumb line, degree, east, isoazimuthal.

//ɹʌm// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A line which crosses successive meridians at a constant angle.
2
a line on a sphere that cuts all meridians at the same angle; the path taken by a ship or plane that maintains a constant compass direction wordnet
3
Any of the 32 points of the compass.
4
A unit of angular measure equal to 1/32 of a circle or 11.25°.

Borrowed from Spanish rumbo or Portuguese rumo, from Latin rhombus, from Ancient Greek ῥόμβος (rhómbos). Doublet of rhomb and rhombus.

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