Earth & SkyGreek → English
Cynosure
/ˈsaɪnəʃʊər/noun
Something that everyone looks at, or that serves as a guide.
The Greek roots
κύων, κυνός
kýōn, kynós
dog
οὐρά
ourá
tail
Literally: “dog's tail”
The story of the word
Ursa Minor was the Dog's Tail to the Greeks, and ancient writers noted that Phoenician sailors steered by it while Greek sailors used the larger and less accurate Great Bear. The pole star sits at the tip of that tail, so the word came to mean whatever a crowd looks to or steers by. Milton fixed the sense in English with a phrase about 'the cynosure of neighbouring eyes'.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → French → English
- First recorded
- 16th century
Same family
cyniccynophobiaProcyoncynicism
In a sentence
The new library became the cynosure of every planning delegation that visited the town.
She was the cynosure of the room and clearly wished she were not.