Definitions

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

  • noun A light, usually small umbrella carried as protection from the sun.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A light umbrella carried by women to shield their faces from the sun's rays; a sunshade.
  • To shade with or as with a parasol; shelter from the sun's rays; supply with a parasol.

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

  • transitive verb rare To shade as with a parasol.
  • noun A kind of small umbrella used by women as a protection from the sun.

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

  • noun A small light umbrella used as protection from the sun

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

  • noun a handheld collapsible source of shade

Etymologies

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

[French, from Italian parasole : parare, to shield (from Latin parāre, to prepare; see perə- in Indo-European roots) + sole, sun (from Latin sōl; see sāwel- in Indo-European roots).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French parasol, from Italian parasole, from para- ("to shield") + sole ("sun")

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Examples

  • Pyramids of Egyptthe real lady's maid, with or without the pink parasol, is far more inappropriate on shipboard.

    Extracts from a Lady's Log-Book, 1832

  • He buried her and after a decent while took this room in The Jolly Tar on the Bristol waterfront, leaving the direction of the estate in Huntingdon to his son, bringing with him only the parasol from the island that made him famous and the dead parrot fixed to its perch and a few necessaries, and has lived here alone ever since, strolling by day about the wharves and quays, staring out west over the sea, for his sight is still keen, smoking his pipes.

    Nobel Lecture - Literature 2003 2003

  • It is doubtful if he realized that a parasol is a purely feminine adjunct; -- although the Mistress always declared he did.

    Further Adventures of Lad Albert Payson Terhune 1907

  • The parasol was a silk one, no longer new, tied round with old elastic.

    The Darling and Other Stories Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 1882

  • Beneath the parasol was the little laundress in her Sunday clothes.

    Original Short Stories — Volume 02 Guy de Maupassant 1871

  • Beneath the parasol was the little laundress in her Sunday clothes.

    Complete Original Short Stories of Guy De Maupassant Guy de Maupassant 1871

  • Her parasol was a mere rose-leaf for size -- about as big as a silver three-cent piece.

    Queer Stories for Boys and Girls Edward Eggleston 1869

  • A dark creature approaches it still snaps and snipes but offers a parasol which is taken before it retires

    Quick crossword No 12,722 2011

  • Expressed in terms of the metaphor of the "greenhouse effect," it would work like this: Geo-engineering would put a "parasol" over the greenhouse to deflect 1% or 2% of the sunlight that now affects the Earth.

    Thinking Big on Global Warming Fred C. Ikle and Lowell Wood 2007

  • Ben Zoof admitted the necessity of extemporizing a kind of parasol for himself, otherwise he must literally have been roasted to death upon the exposed summit of the cliff.

    Off on a Comet 2003

Comments

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  • see also umbrella, bumbershoot

    April 28, 2007

  • Cindy McCain's Secret Service code name...

    November 15, 2008