mackerel sky
an extensive group of cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds, especially when well-marked in their arrangement: so called because of a resemblance to the scales on a mackerel.
Origin of mackerel sky
1Words Nearby mackerel sky
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use mackerel sky in a sentence
The old proverb, “mackerel sky, soon wet or soon dry,” expresses this uncertainty.
Reading the Weather | Thomas Morris LongstrethAnother form that the cirro stratus may assume is the mackerel sky,—clouds with the light and shade of the scales of a fish.
Reading the Weather | Thomas Morris LongstrethI have never met with ten persons who applied even the term “mackerel sky” to the same precise form of cirro-stratus.
The Philosophy of the Weather | Thomas Belden ButlerThe sky was what is called a mackerel sky--rows and rows of faint down-plumes of cloud, just tinted with the midsummer sunset.
The War of the Worlds | H. G. WellsThey were light cumuli, or cirro-cumuli, shifting into a brightly shining mackerel sky.
Farthest North | Fridtjof Nansen
British Dictionary definitions for mackerel sky
a sky patterned with cirrocumulus or small altocumulus clouds
Origin of mackerel sky
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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