polestar

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   the North Star, used as a fixed point for finding direction

   The sailors kept the polestar in sight as they crossed the dark water.

2. 2
   noun

   a guiding principle, ideal, or influential person

   Intellectual honesty remained the polestar of her research.

A compound of pole and star, recorded in the sixteenth century for Polaris, the star appearing close to the north celestial pole. Because navigators used it to maintain direction, polestar later developed the figurative sense of a guiding principle or influential example.

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