De*par"ture (?; 135), n. [From
Depart.] 1. Division; separation; putting
away. [Obs.]
No other remedy . . . but absolute
departure.
Milton.
2. Separation or removal from a place; the
act or process of departing or going away.
Departure from this happy place.
Milton.
3. Removal from the present life; death;
decease.
The time of my departure is at
hand.
2 Tim. iv. 6.
His timely departure . . . barred him from the
knowledge of his son's miseries.
Sir P.
Sidney.
4. Deviation or abandonment, as from or of a
rule or course of action, a plan, or a purpose.
Any departure from a national
standard.
Prescott.
5. (Law) The desertion by a party to
any pleading of the ground taken by him in his last antecedent
pleading, and the adoption of another. Bouvier.
6. (Nav. & Surv.) The distance due
east or west which a person or ship passes over in going along an
oblique line.
&fist; Since the meridians sensibly converge, the departure in
navigation is not measured from the beginning nor from the end of the
ship's course, but is regarded as the total easting or westing made
by the ship or person as he travels over the course.
To take a departure (Nav. & Surv.),
to ascertain, usually by taking bearings from a landmark, the
position of a vessel at the beginning of a voyage as a point from
which to begin her dead reckoning; as, the ship took her
departure from Sandy Hook.
Syn. -- Death; demise; release. See Death.
