# longitude

Pronunciation: US say "LON-juh-tood" /ˈlɑnd͡ʒəˌtud/; UK say "LON-ji-tyood" /ˈlɒnd͡ʒɪtjuːd/

## Noun

1. Angular distance east or west of the prime meridian, used to fix a position on Earth.
   - Simple: A measure of how far east or west a place is from a line that runs through Greenwich, England.
   - _Determining longitude accurately at sea remained a major problem until the marine chronometer was invented._
   - _The two cities lie at nearly the same longitude but at very different latitudes._
2. An imaginary line perpendicular to the equator, forming part of a great circle that passes through both the North and South Poles.
   - Simple: An imaginary line running from the North Pole to the South Pole, crossing the equator at a right angle.
   - _Each longitude runs from pole to pole, crossing the equator at a right angle._
   - _The chart was ruled with longitudes spaced ten degrees apart._

## Noun

3. The length or linear extent of a thing. *(archaic)*
   - Simple: The measured length of something, from one end to the other.
   - _The scholar described the longitude of the table in careful detail._
   - _He marveled at the longitude of the ancient causeway stretching before him._

## Origin

From Middle English, borrowed via Old French longitude from Latin longitūdō ("length, a measured length"), which comes from longus ("long").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/longitude (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).