morning star

Pluralmorning stars

1. 1
   Venusproper noun

   The planet Venus as it appears in the eastern sky around dawn.

   Fishermen heading out before sunrise could steer by the morning star hanging low in the east.

   For weeks the morning star outshone everything else in the dawn sky except the moon.

   SimilarPhosphorus, Lucifer

   OppositeHesperus

   Note

   Rising before the sun, Venus is the morning star; setting after it, the same planet is the evening star, which is why "Hesperus is Phosphorus" became a classic example of two names for one thing. Phosphorus, Eosphorus and Lucifer are older names for the dawn appearance, and poets love the phrase: Tennyson's morn comes "in the white wake of the morning star."

2. 2
   spiked weaponnouncountable

   A weapon made of a heavy spiked ball fixed rigidly to a staff, as opposed to a flail.

   Townsmen in the militia carried morning stars, which were cheap to make and brutal in a crowd.

   The knight's morning star had a shaft of oak and a head studded with iron spikes.

   Note

   The name belongs, strictly, to the rigid weapon, its spiked ball fixed on the shaft; once the ball swings from a chain it is a flail, though the two are often confused. Francis Grose records in 1786 that the pioneers of the city militia long carried morning stars. Holy-water sprinkler was its grimmer nickname, and German supplies the twin form morgenstern.

3. 3
   Mercuryproper nounrare

   The planet Mercury as it appears in the eastern sky around dawn.

   Some weeks Mercury rises just ahead of the sun, a faint morning star easy to lose in the glow.

   The almanac lists Mercury as the morning star for the first half of the month.

   Note

   Mercury takes the title less often than Venus at dawn, and it is the fainter, harder planet to catch. As with Venus, its dawn and dusk appearances once had separate names: Apollo for the morning, Hermes for the evening.

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