Meaning & use
Precession
Last updated
The slow, conical wobble of the rotation axis of a spinning body, caused by an external force acting on it.
See it in a sentence
The precession of Earth's axis takes about 26,000 years to complete a full cycle.
Engineers had to account for the precession of the spinning gyroscope in their calculations.
A note on using this word
The precession of Earth's axis, sometimes called the precession of the equinoxes, is why the pole star gradually changes over thousands of years.
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