NORTH STAR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of North Star

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/nɔrθ stɑr/ Listen

adjective

North adj. Lying toward the north; situated at the north, or in a northern direction from the point of observation or reckoning; proceeding toward the north, or coming from the north.

North following. See Following, a., 2.

North pole, that point in the heavens, or on the earth, ninety degrees from the equator toward the north.

North preceding. See Following, a., 2.

North star, the star toward which the north pole of the earth very nearly points, and which accordingly seems fixed and immovable in the sky. The star alpha of the Little Bear, is our present north star, being distant from the pole about 1° 25´, and from year to year approaching slowly nearer to it. It is called also Cynosura, polestar, and by astronomers, Polaris.

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Etymology of 'North Star'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"North star" Quotes from Famous Books

... all preparations being made, he looked for a moment down the road where his best friend had just gone out of his ken for ever. The thought was so dreary that he did not dare to delay longer, but with a bundle of ironmongery below his arms began to scramble up the glen to where the north star burned between two ...

— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... real splendors, such as fine, sound fruit and gilded insects; I have been quite turning philosopher, and if I happen to tread upon an anthill, I say, like that immortal Bonaparte, "These creatures are men: what is it to Saturn, or Venus, or the North Star?" And then my philosopher comes down to scribble "items" for a newspaper. Proh pudor! And so it seems to me that the ocean, a brig, and an English vessel to sink, if you must sink yourself to do it, are rather better than a writing-desk, a pen, ...

— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... ingenuity for reasons with which to allay their terrors. He told them that the direction of the needle was not to the polar star, but to some fixt and invisible point. The variation, therefore, was not caused by any fallacy in the compass, but by the movement of the north star itself, which, like the other heavenly bodies, had its changes and revolutions, and every day described a circle round the pole. The high opinion they entertained of Columbus as a profound astronomer gave weight to his theory, and their ...

— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various

... his father, "an object that leans over to the north, so as to point to the North Star. If you and Jonas could put a post into the ground so as to have it point to the North Star, then you could mark, all around it, the places to which the shadow would come for every hour in the day, ...

— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott

... heart, Palgrave watched her out of sight. She was his dream come to life. All that he was and hoped to be he had placed forever at her feet. Dignity, individualism, egoism,—all had fallen before this young thing. She was water in the desert, the north star to a man without a compass. He had seen her and come ...

— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton

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