AURORA BOREALIS • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Aurora borealis

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/ərˈɔrə bˌɔriˈæləs/ Listen

noun

Aurora n. (pl. E. auroras, L. rarely used aurorae)

1.

The rising light of the morning; the dawn of day; the redness of the sky just before the sun rises.

2.

The rise, dawn, or beginning.

3.

(Class. Myth.) The Roman personification of the dawn of day; the goddess of the morning. The poets represented her a rising out of the ocean, in a chariot, with rosy fingers dropping gentle dew.

4.

(Bot.) A species of crowfoot.

5.

The aurora borealis or aurora australis (northern or southern lights).

Aurora borealis, i. e., northern daybreak; popularly called northern lights. A luminous meteoric phenomenon, visible only at night, and supposed to be of electrical origin. This species of light usually appears in streams, ascending toward the zenith from a dusky line or bank, a few degrees above the northern horizon; when reaching south beyond the zenith, it forms what is called the corona, about a spot in the heavens toward which the dipping needle points. Occasionally the aurora appears as an arch of light across the heavens from east to west. Sometimes it assumes a wavy appearance, and the streams of light are then called merry dancers. They assume a variety of colors, from a pale red or yellow to a deep red or blood color. The

Aurora australis is a corresponding phenomenon in the southern hemisphere, the streams of light ascending in the same manner from near the southern horizon.

See images of 'Aurora borealis'

Etymology of 'Aurora borealis'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Aurora borealis" Quotes from Famous Books

... Lake Athapaska) became so short that the sun at its greatest altitude only appeared for two or three hours a short distance above the horizon. But there were compensations. The brilliancy of the Aurora Borealis, even without the assistance of the moon and the stars, made some amends for that deficiency, for it was frequently so light all night that travellers could see to read a very small print (Samuel Hearne). The importance of these "Northern lights" must ...

— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... equals a first-class field night of the mysterious aurora borealis. No other phenomenon of nature in magnitude of display, in varied brilliancy of colour, in bewildering rapidity of movement, in grandeur so celestial, in its very existence so unaccountable, is ...

— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... first time he had spoken that evening, and not even the half Cree, or Williams, or the factor's son guessed how the blood was racing through his veins. Outside he stood with the pale, cold glow of the Aurora Borealis shining upon him, and the limitless wilderness, heavy in its burden of snow, reaching out into the ghost-gray fabric of the night. The Englishman's laugh followed him, boisterous and grossly thick, and Jan moved on,—wondering ...

— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... the most dangerous components of the sea is the snowstorm. The snowstorm is above all things magnetic. The pole produces it as it produces the aurora borealis. It is in the fog of the one as in the light of the other; and in the flake of snow as in the streak of ...

— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... great black ball moving in the heavens, and it obscured the moon. The stars were in motion, visibly, and for a time afforded the only light. Then a brilliant halo illuminated the zenith like the quick-shooting irradiations of the aurora borealis. And men ran in different directions, uttering cries of agony. These cries, I remember distinctly, came from men. As I gazed upon the fading and dissolving moon, I thought of the war brought upon us, and the end of the ...

— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

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