Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




North Star   /nɔrθ stɑr/   Listen
North Star

noun
1.
The brightest star in Ursa Minor; at the end of the handle of the Little Dipper; the northern axis of the earth points toward it.  Synonyms: polar star, Polaris, pole star, polestar.



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"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

... road was the usual cross-road, all of it bad and most of it vile. I left the going to Sultan, who did the best he could, like the gallant and experienced creature he was. There was nothing for me to do except to keep a good look out and the north star just behind ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... with unframed paintings, a big brown-bearded man was passing teacups to women who were lounging in chairs and to men who stood black against the red glow of the grate. The big man was George Russell, the famous AE, poet, painter and philosopher, the "north star ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell

... current and the wind and drifts. She needs an anchor. She needs the strong will of another to steady her while she is developing her own. She needs a great ideal to guide her and hold her with the magnetic power of some North Star. She needs to have her ambition aroused and to be made to believe that she, as truly as any one in the world has a "call to serve." She needs to have great things expected and ...
— The Girl and Her Religion • Margaret Slattery

... by the Chinese laws, that if any members of a private family performed the ceremony of the adoration of heaven and of the north star, and lighted the lamps of the sky and of that star, they were guilty of profanation, and liable to be punished with eighty blows. When a dead body was laid in the coffin, the mouth of the deceased was filled with corn, rice, silver, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... North Star is a most beautiful double. Its companion is of the ninth order of magnitude, that is, three magnitudes smaller than the smallest star visible to the naked eye on a dark night. There was a time when Polaris, as a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various

... cemetery. Hewn stones were frequent, and mixed with them were occasional entablatures and vases from which the ages had not yet entirely worn the fine chiselling. At length an immense uncovered sarcophagus barred the way. The master stopped by it to study the heavens; when he found the north star, he gave the signal to his followers, and moved under the trail ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... evening of the 31st July we embarked on the North Star for Superior City. She is of first class, eleven hundred and six tons, and bore an immense freight from the East to the remote peninsula, in exchange for its precious minerals. The entire sail from Cleveland to Superior is nine hundred and ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... same way that some of her rough soldiers must have loved Joan of Arc. Jessie was a mistress whose least whim he felt it a duty to obey. He had worshiped her ever since he had seen her, a little eager warm-hearted child, playing in his mother's wigwam. She was as much beyond his reach as the North Star. Yet her swift tender smile was for him just ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... when the aurora borealis was streaming and sweeping round heaven, when, belated in lonely fields, I had paused to watch that mustering of an army with banners—that quivering of serried lances— that swift ascent of messengers from below the north star to the dark, high keystone of heaven's arch. I felt, not happy, far otherwise, but ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte

... received your letter, not only my husband and I decided to leave our village and go to join you, but twelve of our friends united with us, and on the 10 May, 1782, we quitted Strasbourg on the little vessel North Star [Etoile du Nord],[4] which set sail for New Orleans, where you had promised to come to meet us. Let me tell you the names of my fellow-travelers. O brother! what courage I need to write this account: first my husband, Leonard Cheval, and my son ...
— Strange True Stories of Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... petition. Immediately, at Cimber's request, first Brutus and then Cassius begged for the return of the banished Publius; but Caesar still refused. He said he could not be moved; that he was as fixed as the North Star, and proceeded to speak in the most complimentary terms of the firmness of that star and its steady character. Then he said he was like it, and he believed he was the only man in the country that was; therefore, since he was 'constant' that Cimber should be banished, he was also 'constant' ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain

... are going to be a Woodcrafter, you must begin by knowing the North Star, because that is the star which will show you the way home, if you get lost in the woods at night. That is why the Indians call it the ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson

... sight of our old friend the North Star and his pointers, who guide the mariner, should he be without a compass, in northern latitudes, making acquaintance now with a new constellation, the Southern Cross, which grew more brilliant each night ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson

... her in wonder, but too wistfully. The cat-briers hung across the opening, and grapevines, like cables of sunken ships, fell many a fathom through the crystal waves of night; but the North Star seemed to find a way to peep through everything, and Virgie heard the words from ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... Matthew, and a crew of eighteen men. First, he sailed round the south of Ireland, and from there struck out westward into the unknown sea. The appliances of navigation were then very imperfect. Sailors could reckon the latitude by looking up at the North Star, and noting how high it was above the horizon. Since the North Star stands in the sky due north, and the axis on which the earth spins points always towards it, it will appear to an observer in the northern hemisphere ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock

... "Let the North Star shiver, and the Seven Sisters dance, and all the golden stars hold a revel," thought she; "as for ...
— Fairy Book • Sophie May

... of amateur observers, who are as likely as any to be the first to perceive this remarkable sight, we may say that Cassiopeia, the constellation in which it will appear, lies very near the North Star. You all know how to find the Polar Star by the pointers of the Great Dipper; continue this line beyond about an equal distance, and you will strike Caph, the largest star in Cassiopeia, or the Chair, so-called because the ...
— The Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56, No. 2, January 12, 1884 - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various



Words linked to "North Star" :   dipper, Polaris, pole star, loadstar, Ursa Minor, North Star State, variable, lodestar, Little Bear, Little Dipper, variable star



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org