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68 results for: Nimbus
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Dictionary Entries (8 more entries. View all »)
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)Cite This Source
nim·bus    Audio Help   [nim-buhs] Pronunciation Key
–noun, plural -bi    Audio Help   [-bahy] Pronunciation Key, -bus·es.
1.Classical Mythology. a shining cloud sometimes surrounding a deity when on earth.
2.a cloud, aura, atmosphere, etc., surrounding a person or thing: The candidate was encompassed with a nimbus of fame.
3.halo (def. 1).
4.the type of dense clouds or cloud mass with ragged edges, that yields rain or snow; a rain cloud.
5.(initial capital letter) U.S. Aerospace. one of a series of polar-orbiting meteorological and environmental research satellites, the last of which Nimbus 7, launched 1978, was the first satellite designed to monitor atmospheric pollutants.
[Origin: 1610–20; < L: a rainstorm, rain cloud, thundercloud, cloud; akin to L nebula and Gk nephélé, néphos cloud]

—Related forms
nimbused, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Thesaurus Entries
  Synonym Collection v1.1Cite This Source
Main Entry:  nimbus
Part of Speech:  noun
Synonyms:  atmosphere, aura, aureole, cloud, glory, halo, vapor, aureola
Source:  Synonym Collection v1.1
Copyright © 2008 by Lexico Publishing Group, LLC.
Encyclopedia Articles (57 more entries. View all »)
Columbia Electronic EncyclopediaCite This Source


nimbus, in art, the luminous disk or circle or other indication of light around the head of a sacred personage. It was used in Buddhist and other Asian art and by the early Greeks and Romans to designate gods and heroes and appeared in Christian art in the 5th cent. Although usually a circle or disk, the nimbus has various forms—triangular for God the Father; a circle with a cross for Jesus; a square for a living person; a disk or circle for a saint, with sometimes a band of small stars for the Virgin Mary. In stained glass Jesus and the Virgin were often represented surrounded by an ovoid light called a vesica piscis [Lat.,=fish bladder] (see iconography). The square form was symbolic of the material world; the circle symbolized spiritual perfection and eternal blessedness; and the triangle represented eternity and the Trinity. The nimbus is usually of gold and may have a clearly defined outline or the light may be diffused, radiating from the head in lines that melt into the picture. The term aureole may denote a crown or radiance around the head or it may be an oval used as a background for the whole body. When nimbus and aureole are combined for one figure, the illumination is called a glory. An almond-shaped glory is a mandorla. Halo is a nontechnical term to denote either a disk behind the head or a circle surrounding it. 
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004, Columbia University Press.
Licensed from Columbia University Press




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