nav-

1. Concerning how a road is traversable: Jack wanted to know if it would be navigably possible to drive his car up the winding route through the mountains.
2. Regarding how a watercourse or sea is safe to sail or travel on: The storm wasn't raging any more so it was navigably feasible to continue their trip around the big lake.

1. To plan, to record, and to control the course and position of a ship or an aircraft: The pilot and copilot navigated the plane from Frankfurt to Toronto.
2. To give directions to the driver of a vehicle: Jim used his cell phone with a google map to navigate his wife to their destination.
3. To voyage over water in a boat, or a ship; to sail: The children were able to navigate their raft down the slow river to the pier.

1. Travel or traffic by ship, particularly commercial shipping: There is a lot of navigation in and out of Bremerhaven or Hamburg to different foreign countries.
2. The charting of a course for a road vehicle, an aircraft, vessel, or spacecraft: There is a lot of theory, practice, and technology involved in the night navigation of yachts or other sea-going boats.

1. An individual who directs the course of travel: An officer on a ship is the navigator with the responsibility of getting the ship safely to its destination and on time!
2. An apparatus or device that directs the course of an aircraft or a car, truck, etc.: The navigator or instrument on the dashboard in Jim's car showed him which turns to take when driving to his destination.
3. In past times, an individual who explored by ship: Columbus was a navigator who traveled over the ocean in attempts of reaching land at some point.

Etymology: from 1832, "laborer on a canal or railroad", colloquial shortening of navigator in its sense of "one who digs navigation canals".