to precess

Examples

• All

• The first two parameters were within acceptable limits, but when I checked with the alignment spotters along the z-axis, I found the ring precessing like a top.

  Fiction book (1999)

• Einstein's verdict was as devastating as it was concise: the number of degrees of freedom through which the earlier compass could rotate was too small, so the compass would precess wildly under the oscillation of the ship.

  Academic text (1997)

• And so these things will precess around that, right?

• So this spin will precess and will go like this.

• Well, they're going to precess, right?

• In astronomical terminology, it will precess.

  Academic text (2005)

• So that ellipse precesses around the Sun.

• OK, so the north celestial pole precesses in a circle on the sky, right?

• The orbit precesses by 5600 arcseconds per century.

  Academic text (1994)

• Presumably, the system is actually a triple star, and the third body causes the plane of the orbit of the eclipsing pair to precess, and that causes the eclipses to turn on and off.

  Academic text (1999)

Synonyms

R

to rotate

vsto precess

144 3.0

To turn around a central point, like a wheel or planet

is a slow conical motion of a spinning object's axis

R

to revolve

vsto precess

41 3.2

To make something move in a circle around a central point

is specifically a slow conical motion of an object's axis rather than general circling

G

to gyrate

vsto precess

12 6.9

Spin around in circles or spirals

is the slow conical movement of a spinning object's axis rather than lively spiraling

Antonyms

S

to stabilize

• US

75 4.3

To become steady and stop changing

Surface Forms

Etymology