lodestar

noun

1. A star used as a navigation reference, particularly a pole star such as Polaris.

   “Tho when her ways he could no more descry, But to and fro at disaventure strayd; Like as a ship, whose lodestarre, suddenly Covered with cloudes, her pilot hath dismayd”

   “He was no wavering mariner; he had taken his course from a single lodestar, by which he had steered from the first day he had seen it in his heavens — the lodestar that had shone for him and would always shine.”

2. (figuratively)A guiding tenet or principle.

   “Selfe loue, to him ſelf tender, to the reſt tough, / Is, of iuſt iuſtice, neither roote, braunce, nor bough. / Loue (namely ſelfe loue) corruptibly growyng, / Is cheefe lodeſter of lets, in iuſtice ſhowing.”

   “May we not define its true aim to be that of awakening in the heart those feelings towards moral and religious objects, which like attractions drawing towards the great lodestars of existence, shall ever keep the life right and stedfast?”

   “We need a new lodestar, a new map of the world that once again includes a distant, uncharted continent—“Utopia.””

   “With export controls still restricting the sale of the most advanced chips to China and its university students increasingly unwelcome in the U.S., technological self-sufficiency has become Beijing’s lodestar.”

3. A calculated amount to award as attorney's fees derived by multiplying the reasonable number of hours spent working on a case by the reasonable hourly billing rate.

   “Many, though not all, of the objections to lodestars seem to us to be overstated.”