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precession

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.03 sec.
precession: see gyroscope gyroscope (jī`rəskōp'), symmetrical mass, usually a wheel, mounted so that it can spin about an axis in any direction.
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precession

Phenomenon associated with the action of a gyroscope or a spinning top and consisting of a comparatively slow rotation of the axis of rotation of a spinning body about a line intersecting the spin axis. It arises as a result of external torque acting on the body. One example of precession is the smooth, slow circling of a spinning top (the uneven wobbling is called nutation). Precession of the earth's axis of rotation is the reason that the positions of celestial bodies appear to drift systematically with the passage of time. See also precession of the equinoxes.
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Another finds that the phenomena of precession and nutation require that the earth, if not entirely solid, must at least have a shell not less than eight hundred to a thousand miles in thickness.
At the Earth's Core by Burroughs, Edgar Rice View in context
He was a stern, gaunt man, with a harsh voice, and an aggressive manner, but he had the merit of knowing how to assimilate the ideas of other men, and to pass them on in a way which was intelligible and even interesting to the lay public, with a happy knack of being funny about the most unlikely objects, so that the precession of the Equinox or the formation of a vertebrate became a highly humorous process as treated by him.
The Lost World by Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan View in context
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