nautical » knotical

Chiefly in:   knotical mile

Classification: English – cot/caught merger

Spotted in the wild:

  • The head winds and waves immediately knocked my headway to 5.5 knots, and the tide was running about 4 knots in the deep water. I ran my math. At 1.5 knots to the good, 5 knotical miles is 3.3 hours. Holy smokes. (hpv-boats mailing list, Jun 17, 2002)
  • Approximately 27,500 ships are used to carry the production of 1.33 million tons of fishing products including the offshore fishery on the waters within the economic zones of the territory, i.e., 12 knotical miles to 200 knotical miles from the coast by means of powered vessels. (American Chronicle, Aug 20, 2007)
  • The only thing I stand by the English system is the knotical mile, and that is STILL used on every ship on the sea to this day. (Tiki Central Forums, Nov 15, 2003)
  • With a 160-knot cruise speed and an 800-knotical-mile range, the SR20 is a great cross-country aircraft. (according to avweb.com:, Cirrus Design ad in FLYING magazine, August 1998, p. 15)
  • Knotical knots of gold links rope around to a toggle closure. (jewelery description)

Analyzed or reported by:

It stands to reason that travelling at a speed of 1 knot for an hour, you would cover a distance of 1 knotical mile. Right?

Or to cite Ken Lakritz from his forum post:

> A nautical mile is 1852 meters. A knot is 1 nautical mile per hour. There’s no such thing as a knotical mile.

(_Knotical knot_ appears to be mostly used in jest; it is just too redundant not to give rise for suspicion that something might be wrong about the spelling.)

| link | entered by Chris Waigl, 2007/09/13 |

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