{
  "id": "orientation.spatial",
  "term": "orientation",
  "sense": "spatial",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 14,
  "arena": "orientation",
  "domain": "everyday",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "the direction that a thing is in space",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "direction.spatial",
      "arrangement.spatial",
      "space.extent"
    ],
    "interaction": "when a direction combines with a spatial arrangement of parts, the result tells how the thing is placed relative to space.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "position relative to space",
      "spatial reference frame",
      "directed placement"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Hubble Space Telescope maintains precise orientation toward distant stars using gyroscopes and reaction wheels.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "Migrating monarch butterflies orient toward the sun and magnetic fields to navigate from Canada to central Mexico.",
      "domain": "biology"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Great Pyramid of Giza is oriented to align within 0.05 degrees of true north, reflecting ancient surveying precision.",
      "domain": "architecture"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "direction.spatial",
      "note": "is-a",
      "type": "is-a"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "look.visual",
    "west.direction"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "orientation",
    "orientations"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "components",
      "note": "Added 'space.extent' as it is conceptually required by 'orientation' and present in definition's semantics."
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-orientation.spatial"
}