Liberal Dictionary English Dictionary
lodestone or load·stone [lohd-stohn] EXAMPLES|WORD ORIGIN noun a variety of magnetite that possesses magnetic polarity and attracts iron. a piece of this serving as a magnet. something that attracts strongly. Liberaldictionary.com
Origin of lodestone 1505–15; lode (in obsolete sense “way, course”) + stone Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019 Examples from the Web for lodestone Contemporary Examples of lodestone
Beale Street drew them, it has been said, “like a lodestone.”
Stanley Booth on the Life and Hard Times of Blues Genius Furry Lewis
Stanley Booth
June 7, 2014
It was my lodestone, my centering point, my story as a journalist covering Germany and the East Bloc.
Michael R. Meyer
October 31, 2009
Historical Examples of lodestone
These properties of amber and lodestone appear to have been widely known.
J. Munro
It was the lodestone which had served to draw this woman once more into the danger zone.
Alan Douglas
His glance went to the portrait, and his feet followed, as to a lodestone.
Winston Churchill
That thought became his lodestone, and he left all his other work to accomplish it.
Rupert S. Holland
How early the compass, or lodestone, was known in the North is uncertain.
In Northern Mists (Volume 2 of 2)
Fridtjof Nansen
British Dictionary definitions for lodestone lodestone loadstone noun
- a rock that consists of pure or nearly pure magnetite and thus is naturally magnetic
- a piece of such rock, which can be used as a magnet and which was formerly used as a primitive compass
a person or thing regarded as a focus of attraction Word Origin for lodestone C16: literally: guiding stone Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012 Word Origin and History for lodestone n.
“magnetically polarized oxide of iron,” 1510s, literally “way-stone,” from lode + stone (n.). So called because it was used to make compass magnets to guide mariners. Figurative use from 1570s.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper lodestone in Science lodestone A piece of the mineral magnetite that acts like a magnet. The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
