navigation
noun
Simple meaning
Traffic or travel by vessel.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
navuhgayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈnævəˈɡeɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
uncountable
Traffic or travel by vessel, especially commercial shipping.
“The channel will be open to navigation as soon as the ice melts.”
uncountable
The theory, practice and technology of charting a course for a road vehicle, ship, aircraft, or spaceship.
uncountable
The process of finding a way through a difficult situation.
countable
A canal.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Traffic or travel by vessel, especially commercial shipping.
Used this way, navigation is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a nautical use: it is standard at sea and largely unfamiliar ashore.
“The channel will be open to navigation as soon as the ice melts.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Sailing/maritime
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use navigation
- “The channel will be open to navigation as soon as the ice melts.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Similar Words, What’s the Difference?
Close in meaning, but not always interchangeable.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Light on an airplane that indicates the plane's position and orientation.
A system to control a plane or spacecraft.
Navigating according to the positions of the stars.
A method of controlling the flight of a missile by devices that respond to inertial forces.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The ship's officer in charge of navigation.
Of or relating to navigation.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.