Word.ws English Dictionary

north star

north star is the alternative letter-case form of North Star.

Proper noun capitalized: North Star

North Star

  1. The current northern pole star, the star nearest the northern celestial pole, which for Earth has been Polaris for the last 1500 years.
    • Near-synonyms: pole star, polar star
    • The ships would leave Europe in April, when there was a good easterly wind. Trans-Atlantic mariners wanted the wind dead on the stern, so they could run with it, sticking to the same latitude—a method called easting and westing. Columbus, Cabot, and many others had done this. Until the eighteenth...1997, Mark Kurlansky, “Chapter 4: 1620: The Rock and the Cod”, in Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World, Walker, →ISBN
  2. A locality in the Gwydir council area, north eastern New South Wales, Australia.
  3. A hamlet in the County of Northern Lights, Alberta, Canada.
  4. An unincorporated community in Yuba County, California, formerly North Star House.
  5. A census-designated place in New Castle County, Delaware.
  6. An unincorporated community in Nicollet County, Minnesota.
  7. A village in Darke County, Ohio.
  8. An unincorporated community in Portage County, Wisconsin.
  9. A number of townships in the United States, listed under North Star Township.
  10. A settlement on the island of Saint Croix, United States Virgin Islands.

Noun capitalized: North Star

North Star (plural North Stars)

  1. (figuratively) An aim or a goal, a dependable guiding light in a quickly changing world.
    • For Wilson, his religion served as guiding principle, not a series of explicit religious dictates governing politics: “Wilson's principles, derived from his religious faith, were his North Star, which pointed him in a general direction.2012, Darrin Grinder, Steve Shaw, The Presidents & Their Faith
    • His North Star was Rome, his compass was the Holy Office, “My polar star is Rome; my compass is the Holy Office.”2018, Frank M. Guttman, Honoré Beaugrand: a Traditional “Rouge”?

Synonyms of north star

Forms of north star

pluralnorth stars
pluralNorth Stars

Origin of north star

From Middle English north sterre, norþ sterre, equivalent to north + star.

Words formed from north star

Questions about north star

What does north star mean?
North star means the current northern pole star, the star nearest the northern celestial pole, which for Earth has been Polaris for the last 1500 years.
What is north star the alternative letter-case form of?
North star is the alternative letter-case form of North Star.
What part of speech is north star?
North star can be a proper noun or a noun.

Words near north star in the dictionary

  1. North Smithfield
  2. North Somercotes
  3. North Somerset
  4. North Springfield
  5. North St Marys
  6. north star
  7. North Star State
  8. North Star Stater
  9. north stars
  10. North Stoneham
  11. North Stonington

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: north star (page history and authors); North Star (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-North Star.wav.

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