nimbus

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.

nimbus, in meteorology, low, dark, formless cloud covering the entire sky, from which rain or snow is steadily falling. The term is usually applied to any cloud from which rain descends. Modifications are cumulonimbus, fractonimbus (ragged, broken nimbus), and nimbostratus.

Nimbus may refer to:

• Halo (optical phenomenon), light or mist around an object
• Halo (religious iconography), the disk or ring around the head of a sacred figure
• Nimbus cloud, Nimbus is a Latin word meaning cloud or rain storm

In science & engineering

• Bristol Siddeley Nimbus a turboshaft engine for helicopters
• Mitsubishi Nimbus
• Nimbus (motorcycle)
• Nimbus (pleasure sailing boat 33 ft), Danish build by Bjørn Olsen 1968
• Nimbus program, spacecraft used for weather research
• Nimbus (spray system), modular aerial dispersant spray system for dosing chemicals onto oil slicks
• Nimbus (unicycle)
• The Schempp-Hirth Nimbus-4 series of sailplanes

In computing

• Nimbus BBS, A computerized bulletin-board system which began operating in 1995. Owned by Ralph Smole. Started as dialup,is now running on telnet.
• Nimbus (cipher), an encryption algorithm
• Nimbus (computer), a computer manufactured by Research Machines, based on the Intel 80186 CPU, and with some level of IBM PC compatibility
• Nimbus, a look-and-feel for the Swing widget toolkit for Java and a GTK+ Theme
• RM Nimbus machines was a brand of computers sold in the UK produced between 1985 until 1987 by Research Machines.

In culture

• Nimbus II, a French thoroughbred racehorse foaled in 1910
• Nimbus V, a British thoroughbread racehorse foaled in 1946, and winner of the 1949 Epsom Derby.
• Nimbus Brewing Company, a microbrewery in Tucson, Arizona
• Nimbus Broadcasting Corporation, in India
• Nimbus (rapper), a horrorcore/gothic-rap artist from North London, England.
• Nimbus Records, a compact disc company that featured both modern classical recordings and a section called Prima Voce, which was devoted to historical recordings of classical music.

In fiction

• The Flying Nimbus cloud from the Dragon Ball Series.
• Nimbus (Futurama) The name of the spaceship commanded by Zapp Brannigan on the futuristic animated series Futurama
• Nimbus, fictional broomsticks from the Harry Potter series
• Member of The Omega Men, an extraterrestrial paramilitary rebel group from DC Comics
• V-Wing In star Wars.