Definition of "leeway" in English

noun

1. The drift of a ship or aeroplane in a leeward direction.

2. A varying degree or amount of freedom or flexibility.

   • I don't think we have a lot of leeway when it comes to proper formatting.
   • 2005, James Gosling et al., The Java Language Specification, Third Edition, Prentice Hall PTR, →ISBN, section 15.4 “FP-strict Expressions”, Within an expression that is not FP-strict, some leeway is granted for an implementation to use an extended exponent range to represent intermediate results; […]

3. (British) An adverse discrepancy or variation in a cumulative process, usually in the phrase make up leeway.