Your bearings are your sense of where you are and which way you face. Get your bearings, lose your bearings, take a bearing.
A bearing in the singular is a direction measured in degrees from north, and taking one with a compass is how a walker fixes a position. In the plural and figuratively it means orientation of any kind — getting your bearings in a new job. Note ball bearings, which are a completely different word about carrying loads.
1nounbearingsYour sense of where you are and which way you face.
“When I came out of the station, it took me a moment to get my bearings.”
2noundirectionsDirections measured from north.
“The navigator took bearings on two lighthouses to find the ship's position.”
bearings is an orientation.
Proto-Germanic
*berandz
Old English
berende — bearing; fruitful
Middle English
beringe
English
bearing
English, today
bearings
bearing comes from Middle English beringe, berynge, berende, berande, berand, from Old English berende (“bearing; fruitful”) (also as synonym Old English bǣrende), from Proto-Germanic berandz, present participle of Proto-Germanic beraną (“to bear; carry”), equivalent to bear + ing.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA