nautical mile
Noun
Meaning
a former British unit of length equivalent to 6,080 feet (1,853.184 meters); 800 feet longer than a statute mile
a unit of length used in navigation; exactly 1,852 meters; historically based on the distance spanned by one minute of arc in latitude
Source: WordNetSynonyms
Hypernyms
Examples
As in most of the western world, air navigation is based on nautical units, e.g., the nautical mile, which is neither imperial nor metric, though altitude is still measured in imperial feet citation in keeping with the international standard.
A nautical mile was historically defined as a minute of arc along a great circle of the Earth.
In 1929, the international nautical mile was defined by the First International Extraordinary Hydrographic Conference in Monaco as 1,852 meters.
He reasoned that the lines of latitude could be used as the basis for a unit of measurement for distance and proposed the nautical mile as one minute or one-sixtieth () of one degree of latitude.
Gunter used Snell's circumference to define a nautical mile as 6,080 feet, the length of one minute of arc at 48 degrees latitude.
Nautical mile On the utility of the nautical mile.