the.com/compass needle
A tiny magnet obsessed with one direction, forever pointing out you're not quite north.
means The slender magnetized pointer inside a compass that swings to align itself with Earth's magnetic field, always settling toward magnetic north.
from 'Compass' traces back through French 'compas' to Latin 'com-' (together) plus 'passus' (a step or pace) — originally meaning something like 'to pace out' or measure, the root sense surviving in the drafting tool called a compass, which strides out circles with its two legs. The navigational compass borrowed the name because its circular card, marked with directions, resembled that same shape. 'Needle' is simply the old Germanic word for the sewing tool, applied to the compass's slender pointer because of its sharp, thin shape — the same instinct that later named phonograph needles and pine needles.
- actual target
- points to magnetic north, not true north
- the offset
- declination varies by location, changes over years
- the culprit
- earth's core acts like one giant bar magnet
- pole swap
- magnetic north has drifted toward Siberia for decades