Most Mediterranean cultures used to have names for at least eight winds, each at 45 degrees from each other. Greeks (and therefore Romans) used twelve, at 30 degrees.
Here’s a classic navigator’s wind rose, for instance, with 32 different directions based on eight named winds (might be a bit hard to read on dark backgrounds, here’s the original SVG):
And I say we don’t have enough names, we should have names for at least 30° and 45° increments.
We do, they’re just combinations of the 90 degree ones.
Southwest. North-Northeast.
Yeah, there are 32 named points on a compass, one every 11.25 degrees, you can even fractionalize it to get even more granular
Southwest by west half west for example is 242 degrees
Most Mediterranean cultures used to have names for at least eight winds, each at 45 degrees from each other. Greeks (and therefore Romans) used twelve, at 30 degrees.
Here’s a classic navigator’s wind rose, for instance, with 32 different directions based on eight named winds (might be a bit hard to read on dark backgrounds, here’s the original SVG):