Pronounced: HI-puh-nim, noun
Notes: A neat word that I didn’t know
Yesterday’s word
The word lodestar means “one that serves as an inspiration, model, or guide”
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid-1300s (but see Comments below)
Background / Comments
The literal meaning of our word is “a star that leads or guides” and was used (in the northern hemisphere) to refer to the North Star. However, that usage is archaic. The lode- part of our word came from the Middle English word lode (course). The figurative sense is what remains, but both the literal meaning and the figurative meaning died out in the 1600s; the word was revived by Sir Walter Scott in the early 1800s, and it has been around since then.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 