Navigating

How to spell navigating

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce navigating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does navigating mean?

1. verbPlanning and following a route, or steering a vehicle or vessel along one.
2. verbFinding a way through a complicated or difficult set of circumstances.

Navigating in a sentence

• She spent the whole drive navigating from the passenger seat with a paper map.

• The team is still navigating the complicated tax rules for overseas income.

• The captain was navigating through thick fog when the radar failed.

• Navigating the company through the recession took careful budgeting.

Where does navigating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb navigare, meaning 'to sail' or 'to manage a ship', which was built from navis, the ordinary Latin word for a ship, combined with agere, meaning 'to drive, lead, or steer'. So at its heart navigating literally describes the act of steering a vessel across water. The Latin form passed into English in the sixteenth century, first as 'navigate', and was used for the practical seafaring task of plotting and following a course. Over time the meaning broadened far beyond ships to cover finding a way through any complicated route or situation, whether that is a road system or a tangle of paperwork. The same navis root surfaces in familiar relatives such as 'navy' and 'naval', and the agere root drives words like 'agent' and 'agile'; remembering 'navis' helps fix the single central 'i' that follows the 'v'.

How the word is built

• navig- (from Latin navis 'ship'
• agere 'to drive, steer')
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)
• -ing (present participle/gerund)