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.

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.

Example Sentences

Externally focused recruiting of new employees is not likely to overcome the tidal forces at work here, including more poaching by competitors and the removal of geographic constraints on candidates who are now able to work from home.

From Quartz

Jupiter’s moon has an icy shell that’s 10 to 15 miles thick covering up a huge subsurface ocean that’s heated up by tidal forces.

From MIT Technology Review

They calculate that about 20 percent of long-period comets that pass within Earth’s orbit pass so close to the sun that they are torn apart by tidal forces.

From Nautilus

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

From Project Gutenberg

They judge that the tidal force is ample to scour away clean all the sand deposited both in and outside the reef.

From Project Gutenberg