tidal force


noun
  1. the gravitational pull exerted by a celestial body that raises the tides on another body within the gravitational field, dependent on the varying distance between the bodies.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use tidal force in a sentence

  • A ship is wind-rode when the wind overcomes an opposite tidal force, and she rides head to wind.

    The Sailor's Word-Book | William Henry Smyth
  • They judge that the tidal force is ample to scour away clean all the sand deposited both in and outside the reef.

    Two Years in Oregon | Wallis Nash

Scientific definitions for tidal force

tidal force

  1. A secondary effect of the gravitational forces between two objects orbiting each other, such as the Earth and the Moon, that tends to elongate each body along the axis of a line connecting their centers. Tidal forces are responsible for the fluctuation of the tides as well as for the synchronous rotation of certain moons as they orbit their planets.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.