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I came across a sundial at St. Michael's Mount with a 32-point compass engraved on it. I have never seen the most minor 16 of these points marked on a compass before. What do these abbreviations stand for and what's their history? Here are the points from one quadrant:

  • S
  • SLW ?
  • SSW
  • SWLS ?
  • SW
  • SWLW ?
  • WSW
  • WLS ?
  • W

The ones with a ? are unfamiliar to me.

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    $\begingroup$ The letter "L" corresponds to the English "by", so that, for example, "SLW" stands for "South by West" and "SWLS" stands for "South West by South", as indicated in the section 32-wind compass rose in the Wikipedia article on the Points of the compass. The minor points "X by Y" are well-known, but I do not know what word in what language is actually abbreviated by "L". $\endgroup$
    – Senex
    Commented Oct 1 at 22:06
  • $\begingroup$ Not a history of science question... $\endgroup$
    – Mauricio
    Commented Oct 2 at 16:16
  • $\begingroup$ @Mauricio I wasn't quite sure which SE site this belonged on, if any, but feel free to migrate it if you can think of a better one. $\endgroup$
    – user3490
    Commented Oct 3 at 17:37
  • $\begingroup$ Yep, it's a history of science question. $\endgroup$
    – Thomas Perry
    Commented Oct 4 at 4:29
  • $\begingroup$ @Senex : just speculating, but maybe L stands for "line"? (cf. [rhumb line][1]) [1]: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhumb_line $\endgroup$
    – akhmeteli
    Commented Oct 4 at 23:03

1 Answer 1

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As indicated in comments, what initially appeared to be a letter "L" was actually a corroded "b", corresponding to the English "by". For example, "SbW" stands for "South by West" and "SWbS" stands for "South West by South". There are sixteen directions named analogously, as described in the section 32-wind compass rose in the Wikipedia article on the Points of the compass.

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