How to Use precession in a Sentence

precession

noun
  • While some events started with precession in a low phase, all started with tilt at a peak or on the way up.
    — Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, 13 Mar. 2020
  • The occurrence of a precession provides clues to how the black holes formed.
    — Davide Castelvecchi, Scientific American, 24 Mar. 2016
  • Earth does not spin evenly around its axis, but rather, can wobble like a top—a process called precession.
    — Jeffrey Kluger, Time, 21 July 2023
  • This shift is a result of Earth’s slow wobbling on its axis, known as precession.
    — Carlyn Kranking, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 Sep. 2024
  • The Toronto team used this precession to act as the hands of a clock, called a Larmor clock.
    — Quanta Magazine, 20 Oct. 2020
  • This type of movement, which is caused by the warping of spacetime, is known as Schwarzchild precession.
    — Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 16 Apr. 2020
  • When the precession rates align, the planet's orbit becomes highly stretched.
    — Stefanie Waldek, Space.com, 16 Feb. 2026
  • At a critical point, the two precession rates lock together.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 31 Jan. 2026
  • The idea that our Zodiac signs are wrong because of precession has popped up many times in the past, those who study astrology say.
    — N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA Today, 28 Sep. 2025
  • The calculations revealed a lack of precession prior to the merger.
    — Robert Lea, Space.com, 11 Mar. 2026
  • The orbits of planets close by and the precession motion of a planet on its axis can affect seasonal patterns.
    — Gongjie Li, Discover Magazine, 11 Jan. 2024
  • The Earth slowly wobbles on its axis—a phenomenon known as precession—which means certain stars in the night sky shift over time.
    — Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Tearing can also lead to the formation of rings that undergo precession and start wobbling around the axis of their rotation.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 3 Sep. 2020
  • However, on account of the wobble of the Earth's axis (called precession), the celestial pole shifts as the centuries go by.
    — Joe Rao, Space.com, 27 June 2025
  • In a magnetic field, protons wobble like spinning tops, with their spin axes tracing out a cone—a phenomenon called precession.
    — David Schneider, IEEE Spectrum, 25 Nov. 2025
  • But because of precession, that has since changed, so our star was actually in the constellation of Virgo when I was born.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 3 Jan. 2025
  • Because of the wobble in the Earth’s axis, called precession, the constellation Aries is no longer in the background during the equinox.
    — Mike Lynch, Twin Cities, 16 Mar. 2025
  • The irregular patterns may also be caused by the slow, wobbly motion of the protostar's jet over time, a phenomenon known as precession.
    — Victoria Corless, Space.com, 24 Mar. 2025
  • As their orbit tightens, the relativistic precession of the stars speeds up, while the planet’s precession slows down, because the stars act more like a single object from far away.
    — Rupendra Brahambhatt, Interesting Engineering, 31 Jan. 2026
  • This is complicated in the long run by a wobble in Earth’s rotation called precession, which is caused by the gravitational tugging of the moon and sun.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 3 Jan. 2025
  • The key players in these cycles are Earth's obliquity, the precession of its rotational axis and the shape of Earth's orbit around the sun.
    — Keith Cooper, Space.com, 11 Mar. 2025
  • Interactions with these temporary particles affect the g-factor, causing muons' precession to gain or lose speed slightly.
    — Kaelan Deese, Washington Examiner, 7 Apr. 2021
  • Since O’Keefe’s discovery, phase precession has been intensively studied in rats.
    — Grace Huckins, Wired, 11 June 2021
  • Lescarbault’s sightings were never confirmed, and the perihelion precession of Mercury remained a puzzle for nearly six more decades.
    — Katia Moskvitch, WIRED, 6 May 2018
  • Simply put, humans’ lives are valuable and should not to be at the mercy of a technical error that could be made by these AI systems regardless of its high precession.
    — Mohamed Suliman, Boston Herald, 10 Mar. 2026
  • This slightly faster precession prevents it from experiencing spin orbit resonances.
    — Gongjie Li, Discover Magazine, 11 Jan. 2024
  • Proton-precession magnetometers have been around for decades and were once often used in archaeology and mineral exploration.
    — David Schneider, IEEE Spectrum, 25 Nov. 2025
  • As time progresses, tidal forces between the stars can draw them closer, accelerating their precession and causing an orbiting planet's precession to slow.
    — Stefanie Waldek, Space.com, 16 Feb. 2026
  • Their heads spin in one direction, while the tail rotates around it in the opposite direction in a process known as precession—much like Earth spinning on its axis while orbiting the Sun.
    — Charlotte Hartley, Science | AAAS, 31 July 2020
  • However, the Earth has moved on its axis since then, a process known as precession, so now the dates that are used to mark the signs don’t really correspond to the background constellations that give them their signs names.
    — Olivia B. Waxman, Time, 21 June 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'precession.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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