Longitude

How to spell longitude

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce longitude

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does longitude mean?

1. nounThe angular distance of a place east or west of a reference meridian, measured in degrees.

Longitude in a sentence

• The ship's navigator recorded the exact longitude at noon.

• Each line of longitude runs from the North Pole to the South Pole.

Where does longitude come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin longitudo, which simply meant 'length' or 'long duration', formed from the adjective longus, meaning 'long', joined to the noun-forming ending -tudo that turns a quality into an abstract noun. English adopted it in the late 1300s, at first carrying that plain sense of length or extent before settling into its modern geographic meaning. As mapmaking and navigation matured, longitude came to name the angular distance east or west of a reference meridian, paired with latitude, the north-south measure that descends from Latin latus, meaning 'wide'. The shared -itude ending of both words is no accident; it is the same Latin suffix attached to 'long' and 'wide', a neat reminder of why the spelling keeps that 'i' before 'tude'. The hidden 'g' that softens to a 'j' sound is the spelling trap, since the eye expects the hard 'g' of 'long' but the pronunciation glides into a 'j'.

How the word is built

• longi- (from Latin longus: long)
• -tude (noun suffix forming abstract nouns)