navigation
Pluralnavigations (some meanings)
- 1The science, skill, and equipment used to plan and follow a route for a ship, aircraft, spacecraft, or road vehicle.
Aircraft navigation has improved dramatically since the introduction of GPS.
She studied navigation for years before captaining her first vessel.
Note
Here the word still carries its Latin root: nāvigō meant simply "sail," and the noun came into English through French as the craft of sailing. It has since widened to cars, aircraft and spacecraft. As a mass noun it takes modifiers naming the setting or method, as in night navigation or aircraft navigation, rather than a plural. A yachtsman is competent at navigation, not at a navigation.
- 2The act of moving through and accessing the different parts of a software interface.
Good website navigation lets visitors reach any page in just a few clicks.
The redesign improved navigation across all of the app's main screens.
- 3The act of working out how to get through a difficult situation.
His skillful navigation of the merger negotiations saved hundreds of jobs.
Navigation of the healthcare system can overwhelm newly diagnosed patients.
Similarhandling, management
- 4
- 5A constructed inland waterway built for the passage of boats; a canal.
The disused navigation has become a haven for wildlife and walkers.
Engineers widened the navigation to accommodate larger barges.
Note
Unlike the word's other uses, this one names a thing you can count, so it takes an article and a plural: a navigation, several navigations. The channel is named for what it carries, travel by vessel, so a navigation is a canal thought of as a route for boats. Elsewhere the word names an activity; here it names a place on the map.
Practice
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Origin
This word was borrowed from Middle French navigation, which came from Latin nāvigātiō ('sailing, navigation'), based on the verb nāvigō ('to sail').