meaning of longitude
1. Length; measure or distance along the longest line; -- distinguished from breadth or thickness; as, the longitude of a room; rare now, except in a humorous sense.
2. The arc or portion of the equator intersected between the meridian of a given place and the meridian of some other place from which longitude is reckoned, as from Greenwich, England, or sometimes from the capital of a country, as from Washington or Paris. The longitude of a place is expressed either in degrees or in time; as, that of New York is 74¡ or 4 h. 56 min. west of Greenwich.
3. The distance in degrees, reckoned from the vernal equinox, on the ecliptic, to a circle at right angles to the ecliptic passing through the heavenly body whose longitude is designated; as, the longitude of Capella is 79¡.
4. an imaginary great circle on the surface of the earth passing through the north and south poles at right angles to the equator; "all points on the same meridian have the same
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