any of several mechanical devices for measuring the speed of a vessel and the distance travelled, consisting typically of a trailing rotor that registers its rotations on a meter
Compare chip log
patent log in American English
noun
Nautical
any of various devices for determining the speed of a ship by means of a vaned rotorstreamed at the end of a log line upon which it exerts a torsion transmitted to a registering device on board
Also called: screw log
Word origin
[1875–80]This word is first recorded in the period 1875–80. Other words that entered Englishat around the same time include: authoritarian, musical chairs, neoclassic, pressure point, slime mold