Friday, October 18, 2013

Fwd: aureole: Dictionary.com Word of the Day

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dictionary.com <doctor@dictionary.com>
Date: 2013/10/18
Subject: aureole: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
To: "Hector William G." <hectorpinillos@gmail.com>

Word of the Day for Friday, October 18, 2013

aureole \AWR-ee-ohl\, noun:

1. a radiance surrounding the head or the whole figure in the representation of a sacred personage.
2. any encircling ring of light or color; halo.
3. Astronomy. corona.
4. Geology. a zone of altered country rock around an igneousintrusion.

It illuminated the words on Sir Philip's monument, and then touched the small head below it, till it shone with a living glory, lighting the pale, serene face, so that it seemed to Sir Philip that the aureole of a saint had surrounded her.
-- Emma Marshall, Heights and Valleys, 1871

…her hair was all creped into a filmy golden aureole round her face.
-- Harriet Beecher Stowe, Pink and White Tyranny: A Society Novel, 1871

Aureole comes from the Latin aureus, which is a diminutive term meaning "golden." It came to English in the late 1400s.

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