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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.



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"North Star" Quotes from Famous Books



... on deck at 4 a.m. The Southern Cross, the Great Bear, and the North Star, were shining with a brilliancy that eclipsed all ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... be movin' off from hyar. If ye can't go a great ways under kiver o' the night, I reck'n we kin put enough o' parairia atween us an' these Injuns to make sure agin thar spyin' us in the mornin'. So let's start south-eastart, an' try for the sources o' the Red. Thur's that ole beauty o' the North Star that's been my friend an' guide many's the good time. Thar it is, makin' the handle o' the Plough, or the Great Bar, as I've heern that colleckshin o' stars freekwently called. We've only to keep it on our left, a leetle torst the back o' the shoulder, an' then ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... 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

... the wild North-Sea,—the hero being a parson's son who is appreciated on board a Lowestoft fishing lugger. The lad has to suffer many buffets from his shipmates, while the storms and dangers which he braved on board the "North Star" are set forth with minute knowledge and intense power. The wreck of the "Golden Fleece" forms the climax to a thrilling series ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins

... north—Rocky Dell Farm to Cherrie, Sagamore Hill to me; and to Kermit the call was stronger still. After nightfall we could now see the Dipper well above the horizon—upside down, with the two pointers pointing to a north star below the world's rim; but the Dipper, with all its stars. In our home country spring had now come, the wonderful northern spring of long glorious days, of brooding twilights, of cool delightful nights. ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... stood at a window watching the lights twinkle forth, near and far, in the valley, and listening to the convent bells that sounded from Monte Olivetto, and more remotely still. The stars came out, and the constellation of the Dipper hung exactly over the Val d' Arno, pointing to the North Star above the hills ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... "The North Star," said the astrologer. "The ill-shaped man is still standing on the fore-part of the ship; I do not know his name or who he is. He takes the portrait of a beautiful young woman from his pocket ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... stock-in-trade. 'Look'ye here! Here's a collection of 'em. Earth, air, or water. It's all one. Only say where you'll have it. Up in a balloon? There you are. Down in a bell? There you are. D'ye want to put the North Star in a pair of scales and weigh it? He'll ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... which were marked three lines to show the northern and southern limits of the sun's path, and the equator—called the "black shining road of Kane" and "of Kanaloa," respectively, and the "road of the spider" or "road to the navel of Wakea" (ancestor of the race). A line was drawn from the north star to Newe in the south; to the right was the "bright road of Kane," to the left the "much traveled road of Kanaloa." Within these lines were marked the positions of all the known stars, of which Kamakau names 14, besides 5 planets. For notes upon Polynesian astronomy consult ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous

... sand-flies are rather troublesome; but the large cleared space about the houses of the mining company is almost free from them, and in the beautiful light evenings one can sit under the verandahs undisturbed, watching the play of the moonbeams on the silky leaves of the bananas, the twinkling north star just peeping over the range in front, with "Charlie's Wain" in the upper half of its endless circlings, whilst in the opposite direction the eye rests on the beautiful constellations of the southern hemisphere. ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... At times he would work lunars in his head, as did the Macedonians. Laughable as it may seem, John was just credulous enough to think that savages in these out-of-the-way parts of the world were honored with a north star, and amused himself with speculations on its identity. As luck will now and then favor the unfortunate, so we, after a voyage in which were any amount of storms and hair-breadth escapes, which it will be needless to describe here, arrived ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton

... their directions when the sun and stars were obscured. More than one mediaeval writer describes the process by which a needle is rubbed on a piece of magnetic iron, then laid on a straw or attached to a piece of cork, and floated on water till its point turns towards the north star. [Footnote: Alexander Neckham, De Utensilibus; De Natura Rerum, book II., chap, xcviii.; Guyot de Provins, La Bible, Jacques de Vitry, Historia Orientalis; Brunette Latini, Epistolas, who mentions Roger Bacon as showing him a magnet at Oxford in 1258. Quoted in Beazley, Hakluyt Soc, ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... popularly conceived to have more first hand acquaintance with sordidness than those hedged about by family tradition. [Footnote: See John Davidson, A Ballad in Blank Verse; Vachel Lindsay, The North Star Whispers to the Blacksmith's Son; John Masefield, Dauber; Francis Carlin, MacSweeney the Rhymer (1918).] Still, for the most part, the present attitude of poets toward the question seems to be ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins

... one's self on the couch, abandoning all to the tempest of regret and disappointment; to cry out to David; to apostrophize the unseen; to fall into the hideous abyss of hopelessness; to see once again the north star of religion; to call upon God for help; to doze; to awaken to the abominations of the reality; to remember the escape from perdition; to hasten to the ...
— David Lockwin—The People's Idol • John McGovern

... then, of course, there was the fun of guessing. And they guessed everything under the sun, enough toys and articles to fill the biggest store in the world, or the whole of Santa Claus' workshop, which stands under the North Star where the polar bears live and the Aurora weaves ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... China is almost overwhelming. In spite of all that I had read, I was amazed by what I saw. To say that the Empire has an area of 4,218,401 square miles is almost like saying that it is 255,000,000,000 miles to the North Star; the statement conveys no intelligible idea. The mind is only confused by such enormous figures. But it may help us to remember that China is one-third larger than all Europe, and that if the United States and ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... The blush upon her face detracted nothing from her beauty. Dudley felt drawn toward her as a needle is drawn by the North Star. He walked quickly toward her, hesitated as she drew back, stopped as she cast her eyes upon the ground, and presently said, "Life would be a very sad thing, would it not, if we had no pleasant memories of the past? I believe the thoughts of those happy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... had been given her of Harriet's intention, for the old woman was of a most impulsive disposition, and her cries and lamentations would have made known to all within hearing Harriet's intended escape. And so, with only the North Star for her guide, our heroine started on the way to liberty, "For," said she, "I had reasoned dis out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have de oder; for no man should take me alive; I should fight ...
— Harriet, The Moses of Her People • Sarah H. Bradford

... hour axis can be directed to the north pole by the following method. Point it approximately to the north star. The pole is 1 deg. and 15 min. from the star on a straight line from the star to "Mizar," the star at the bend of the handle in the Big Dipper. Turn the hour circle into a position where the pointer can describe a circle through "Mizar." Only a ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... been invisible to one staring toward it a dozen steps away. A temporary death had invaded the world. There was neither movement nor sound save the frenzied dance of dust and the whistle of winds which seemed shunted southward from the north star. ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... Indians must be watched, and so break into his much needed rest. He riveted his attention upon the stars, and began to name over the constellations he could see. There was the Great Bear, the trapper's timepiece in the wilderness; and there, almost directly above him and very bright, the North Star, the hunter's compass. Then, there was the Big Dipper, very high, and the Little Bear. Southerly, through the trees, and looking like an arc-lamp suspended there, Sirius gleamed, while very low and to the left was ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... were still there; but as soon as it was dark, and we could see the stars (for our guide would not stir before), having all our horses and camels ready loaded, we followed our new guide, who I soon found steered himself by the north star, the country being level ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... "we are homeward bound. The stars have told me a great deal. See them all. Over there are Regulus and his sickle, and in the northwest you see Queen Vega. There is Ursa Major up there, nearly overhead. There's the Little Bear north of it; and still north is the good old North Star. We are going straight for land, ...
— Dan Merrithew • Lawrence Perry

... Little Dipper and lay back on the sand, his hands clasped under his head. "I can see the North Star," he announced, contentedly, pointing toward it with his big toe. "Any one might get lost and need ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather

... enacted 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, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... As you know, the 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 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various

... Lawrence, as the rolling tide lapped our keel, I was dreaming of a far, cold paleocrystic sea, mystic in the frost-clouds that lay over it like smoke. Then a figure emerged from the white darkness. I was snatched up, with the northern lights for chariot, two blazing comets our steeds, and the north star a charioteer. ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut

... the dirtiest coal-boat that lies beached in the harbour, a mere hulk of utilities that are taken away by dirty men in dirty carts, will in a day or two lift itself from the mud on a full tide and float away like a spirit into the sunset or curtsy to the image of the North Star. Mystery lies over the sea. Every ship is bound for Thule. That, perhaps, is why men are content day after day to stand on the pier-head and to gaze at the water and the ships and sailors running up and down the decks and pulling the ropes ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... advanced stage by stage. First, all Magog flushed, as if a repetition of the old miracle had turned it to wine. Then innumerable night-hawks uttered their four musical notes in endless succession, upon the heights, down in the woods, from the mainland mountain. The north star became discernible almost overhead. Then, with slow and irregular strokes, Adam pulled away from the cliff, and brought his keel to grate the sand in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various

... waste, under the North star, lay that stubborn little land of Bibles and evening bells, of smoky cities, and hedge-rows fragrant with dog-rose and honeysuckle, of apple-cheeked children, greedy fighting-men, and still-eyed women ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant



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



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