Word.ws English Dictionary

cynosure

/ˈsɪnəzjʊə//ˈsaɪnəʃʊɹ/

cynosure noun: that which serves to guide or direct; a guiding star. Also the alternative letter-case form of Cynosure.

Noun

cynosure (plural cynosures)

  1. (figuratively) That which serves to guide or direct; a guiding star.
    • let faith be your cynosure to walk by
  2. (figuratively) Something that is the center of attention; an object that serves as a focal point of attraction and admiration.
    • Towers, and battlements it sees
      Bosom'd high in tufted trees,
      Where perhaps some beauty lies,
      The cynosure of neighbouring eyes.1645, John Milton, L'Allegro
    • Meanwhile the fair young Queen, in her halls of state, walks like a goddess of Beauty, the cynosure of all eyes; as yet mingles not with affairs; heeds not the future; least of all, dreads it.1837, Thomas Carlyle, “Astræa Redux”, in The French Revolution: A History […], volume I (The Bastille), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, book II (The Paper Age)

Proper noun capitalized: Cynosure

Cynosure

  1. Ursa Minor or Polaris, the North Star, used as a guide by navigators.

Also used as

cynosure is also the alternative letter-case form of Cynosure.

Forms of cynosure

Noun
pluralcynosures
Proper noun
alternative formCynosura
alternative formcynosure

Origin of cynosure

From Middle French Cynosure (“Ursa Minor; Polaris”), from Latin Cynosūra (“Ursa Minor”), from Ancient Greek Κυνόσουρα (Kunósoura, “Ursa Minor”, literally “dog’s tail”), from κυνός (kunós, “dog's”) + οὐρά (ourá, “tail”).

Words formed from cynosure

Questions about cynosure

What does cynosure mean?
Cynosure means that which serves to guide or direct; a guiding star.
What part of speech is cynosure?
Cynosure can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce cynosure?
Cynosure is pronounced /ˈsɪnəzjʊə/ (UK).
What is the plural of cynosure?
The plural of cynosure is cynosures.

Words near cynosure in the dictionary

  1. cynophobias
  2. cynophobic
  3. cynorexia
  4. Cynosarges
  5. cynosural
  6. cynosure
  7. cynosures
  8. Cynthia
  9. Cynthian
  10. Cynthiana
  11. Cynthias

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cynosure (page history and authors); Cynosure (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-cynosure.ogg, fixed_en-us-cynosure.ogg.

Cite this entry: “cynosure.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cynosure. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.