Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A cloudy radiance said to surround a classical deity when on earth.
  • noun A radiant light that appears usually in the form of a circle or halo about or over the head in the representation of a god, demigod, saint, or sacred person such as a king or an emperor.
  • noun A splendid atmosphere or aura, as of glamour, that surrounds a person or thing.
  • noun A rain cloud, especially a low dark layer of clouds such as a nimbostratus.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A cloud or system of clouds from which rain is falling; a rain-cloud. See cloud .
  • noun In art and Christian archæol., a halo or disk of light surrounding the head in representations of divine or sacred personages; also, a disk or circle sometimes depicted in early times round the heads of emperors and other great men.
  • noun In heraldry, a circle formed of a single line, drawn around the head and disappearing where it seems to go behind it.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Fine Arts) A circle, or disk, or any indication of radiant light around the heads of divinities, saints, and sovereigns, upon medals, pictures, etc.; a halo. See aureola, and glory, n., 5.
  • noun (Meteor.) A rain cloud; one of the four principal varieties of clouds. See Cloud.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A circle of light; a halo.
  • noun A gray rain cloud.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an indication of radiant light drawn around the head of a saint
  • noun a dark grey cloud bearing rain

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin, cloud; see nebh- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin nimbus ("dark cloud")

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Examples

  • Halos: Also known as a nimbus, icebow or Gloriole, a halo is an optical phenomenon that appears near or around the Sun or Moon, and sometimes near other strong light sources such as street lights.

    Celestial Phenomena 2008

  • I mean,in the anime you may see a car and guns here and there but they arent exactly everywhere and play no part whatsoever in the story,yet here goku has a car called nimbus instead of a cloud.

    Full Dragonball Teaser Trailer Hits As Well! « FirstShowing.net 2008

  • This glory was called nimbus, or aureola, and is defined by

    Museum of Antiquity A Description of Ancient Life

  • The spikes are sun rays, he says, and the circle is "simply a halo or what in art is called a nimbus, showing she is divine."

    NPR Topics: News 2009

  • These sometimes compulsive, sometimes alienating liberties are contained here in the voice of another of his neurotic escapees from the culture, which in Pierre's terms is a "nimbus" of blasted morals and unchecked market forces.

    Lights Out in Wonderland by DBC Pierre 2010

  • I mean,yellow-green piccolo,an emo school boy goku im 95% sure there will be a "i cant do this,i cant beat this guy" "no you can beat him,believe in yourself!" talk in final battle and a lara-croft rip-off bulma…I also make a wild guess that yellow car will take place of the "nimbus"

    Full Dragonball Teaser Trailer Hits As Well! « FirstShowing.net 2008

  • Normally, when Judas is depicted, he is distinguished from the other apostles and saints because he has no halo or "nimbus".

    Archive 2006-02-01 Fr Timothy Matkin 2006

  • Normally, when Judas is depicted, he is distinguished from the other apostles and saints because he has no halo or "nimbus".

    The black halo Fr Timothy Matkin 2006

  • Figg found himself watching her in a familiar way, with a softening of his feelings toward her, and a kind of nimbus of light around her presence.

    Asimov's Science Fiction 2004

  • Shimoda had theorized that women of Gelmann's ilk possessed a sixth sense or power, a kind of nimbus of concentrated maternal energy tendrils which they could fling out with a single word or gesture to stun anyone within range like emotional nematocysts.

    Codgerspace Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1992

Comments

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  • This is the female form;

    A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot ...

    Whitman, "I Sing the Body Electric"

    December 11, 2006

  • a vehicle for a cloud of witnesses ?? they don't march that way

    August 26, 2007