single word requests - In navigation, what's the difference between bearing, heading, direction, and course?


Specifically, in real-world use, I would think that "course" and "heading" tend to imply a vector of movement, while "bearing" and "direction" might refer only to which way one is facing.


I am looking for two words to correctly assign to these physical components of a vehicle. I suppose I may be looking for military, or naval terminology.


For example, if you were in a submarine, being buffeted by currents, so your vessel was being pushed sideways, how would you correctly say, "we are being pushed east but we are facing north?" Would it be correct to say "we are bearing 0°, but our heading is 270°?" It doesn't sound correct.


Edit


As I note in a comment below: when I clumsily wrote that I was "looking for two words to correctly assign to these physical components of a vehicle," what I meant was, single-word attributes to distinguish between the direction a vehicle was facing, and the actual direction the vehicle was moving in, voluntarily or not.




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

verbs - "Baby is creeping" vs. "baby is crawling" in AmE

commas - Does this sentence have too many subjunctives?

grammatical number - Use of lone apostrophe for plural?

etymology - Where does the phrase "doctored" originate?

phrases - Somebody is gonna kiss the donkey

typography - When a dagger is used to indicate a note, must it come after an asterisk?

etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"