Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as corposant.
  • noun The ignis fatuus or will-o'-the-wisp; a corpse-candle.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The Lady of Lochleven was not without a touch, though a slight one, of the superstitions of the time; the fate of her sons made her alive to omens, and a corpse-light, as it was called, in the family burial-place boded death.

    The Abbot 2008

  • I doubted that Grannie Wilson would have any interest in haunting me, but care never hurt-and I did have an uneasy memory of a skull with silver fillings in its teeth, and my encounter with what might have been its possessor, seen by corpse-light on a black mountain night.

    A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005

  • I am flooded with thoughts of particles in motion in a void; black holes suspended in infinite black space and of the loneliness of their existence - invisible, powerful, devouring, in solitude; of stars that suddenly flare and supernova, brilliant, burning, echoing light for millions of years, and of worlds that spin unaware that the source of their light is long dead, long gone, a corpse-light.

    notes from the peanut gallery Dean Francis Alfar 2003

  • I am flooded with thoughts of particles in motion in a void; black holes suspended in infinite black space and of the loneliness of their existence - invisible, powerful, devouring, in solitude; of stars that suddenly flare and supernova, brilliant, burning, echoing light for millions of years, and of worlds that spin unaware that the source of their light is long dead, long gone, a corpse-light.

    Archive 2003-05-01 Dean Francis Alfar 2003

  • The silence and the darkness were worse than the corpse-light.

    The Shadow Of The Lion Lackey, Mercedes 2002

  • In the corpse-light of the dying land, the archaic words could still be traced as the water rose around them, breaking at last in tiny ripples across the stone.

    Reach for Tomorrow Clarke, Arthur C. 1956

  • In the corpse-light of the dying land, the archaic words could still be traced as the water rose around them, breaking at last in tiny ripples across the stone.

    Reach For Tomorrow Clarke, Arthur C. 1956

  • Paler indeed than the moon ailing in some slow eclipse was the light of it now, wavering and blowing like a noisome exhalation of decay, a corpse-light, a light that illuminated nothing.

    The Lord of the Rings Tolkien, J. R. R. 1954

  • Like a corpse-light seen through a frosty pane in a night of want and woe;

    Songs of a Sourdough 1916

  • Like a corpse-light seen through a frosty pane in a night of want and woe;

    The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses 1916

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