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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

lodestar.

A star used as a navigation reference, particularly a pole star such as Polaris.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈləʊd.stɑː(ɹ)/Received-Pronunciation/ˈloʊd.stɑɹ/General-American/ˈləʉd.staː(ɹ)/Australia
  1. A star used as a navigation reference, particularly a pole star such as Polaris.

  2. A guiding tenet or principle.

    figuratively
  3. A calculated amount to award as attorney's fees derived by multiplying the reasonable number of hours spent working on a case by the reasonable hourly billing rate.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English lode (“journey, course”) + star, where lode is an archaic noun from the verb lithe (“to go, journey”), related to lead. Other Middle English spellings include: 14th century loode sterre, lood-sterre, lade-sterne; and 15th century lode sterre. Cognate with Old Norse leiðarstjarna, Dutch leidster, German Leitstern, Danish ledestjerne, Swedish ledstjärna.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.