Points of the compass 32-wind compass rose is yielded from the eight principal winds, eight half-winds and sixteen quarter-winds combined together, with each compass direction point at an ° angle from the next. In the mariner's exercise of boxing the compass, all thirty-two points of the compass are named in clockwise order. The traditional compass rose of eight winds (and its 16-wind and 32-wind derivatives) was invented by seafarers in the Mediterranean Sea during the Middle Ages (with no obvious connection to the twelve classical compass winds of the ancient Greeks and Romans). The traditional mariner's wind names were expressed in Italian, or more
Compass rose of the principal winds to come up with intermediate compass points, known as half-winds, at angles of difference of 22°. The names of the half-winds are simply combinations of the principal winds to either side, principal then ordinal. E.g. North-northeast (NNE), East-northeast (ENE), etc. 32-point compass roses are constructed by bisecting these angles, and coming up with quarter-winds at 11° angles of difference. Quarter-wind names are constructed with the names "X by Y", which can be read as "one quarter wind from X toward Y", where X is one of the eight principal winds and Y is one of the