precession

Plural: precessions

Noun

• the motion of a spinning body (as a top) in which it wobbles so that the axis of rotation sweeps out a cone
• the act of preceding in time or order or rank (as in a ceremony)
• Precedence.
• The wobbling motion of the axis of a spinning body when there is an external force acting on the axis.
• The slow gyration of the earth's axis around the pole of the ecliptic, caused mainly by the gravitational torque of the sun and moon.
• Any of several slow changes in an astronomical body's rotational or orbital parameters.

Examples

• But as it will not do to talk entirely at random, as Montaigne does, and Ralph Waldo Emerson tries to do, we must take up some little thread or threads. and string our thoughts thereupon, keeping up also a relation among them of precession and succession.

Synonyms

precedence, precedency

Related Words

precess