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word of the day

The word for today is…
yaw (noun, verb):
noun
1 : the action of yawing, especially a side-to-side movement
2 : the extent of the movement in yawing

verb
a: of a ship – to deviate erratically from a course (as when struck by a heavy sea) especially to move from side to side
b: of an aeroplane, spacecraft, or projectile – to turn by angular motion about the vertical axis

Source : Merriam -Webster

Etymology : In the heyday of large sailing ships, numerous nautical words appeared on the horizon. Yaw is one such word. Its origin isn’t exactly known, but it began turning up in print in the 16th century, first as a noun (meaning “movement off course” or “side to side movement”) and then as a verb. For centuries, it remained a sailing word—often alongside pitch (“to have the front end rise and fall”). When the era of aeroplane flight dawned, much of the vocabulary of sailing found new life in aeronautics, and “yawing” was no longer confined to the sea. Nowadays, yaw, pitch, and roll are just as likely to be used by pilots and rocket scientists to describe the motion of their crafts.

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