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• corona
  corona

  noun

  a white or colored circle or set of concentric circles of light seen around a luminous body, especially around the sun or moon.
• Corona
  Corona

  noun

  a city in southeastern California.

corona

¹ American  

[kuh-roh-nuh] / kəˈroʊ nə /

noun

• coronas,
  plural
• coronae
  plural

1. a white or colored circle or set of concentric circles of light seen around a luminous body, especially around the sun or moon.

2. Meteorology. such a circle or set of circles having a small radius and ranging in color from blue inside to red outside, attributable to the diffraction caused by thin clouds, mist, or sometimes dust (distinguished from halo).

3. Also called aureola, aureole. Astronomy. a faintly luminous envelope outside of the sun's chromosphere, the inner part consisting of highly ionized elements.

4. a long, straight, untapered cigar, rounded at the closed end.

5. Botany. a crownlike appendage, especially one on the inner side of a corolla, as in the narcissus.

6. Anatomy. the upper portion or crown of a part, as of the head.

7. any part or structure suggestive of a crown or curved crown shape.

8. Pathology. a coronavirus, especially COVID-19.

9. Electricity. corona discharge.

10. Architecture. the projecting, slablike member of a classical cornice supported by the bed molding or by modillions, dentils, etc., and supporting the cymatium.

11. the tonsure of a cleric.

12. Ecclesiastical. a gold-colored stripe around the lower edge of a clerical headdress, as of a miter.

13. a chandelier of wrought metal, having the form of one or more concentric hoops.

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Corona ² American  

[kuh-roh-nuh] / kəˈroʊ nə /

noun

1. a city in southeastern California.

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corona British  

/ kəˈrəʊnə /

noun

1. a circle of light around a luminous body, usually the moon

2. Also called: aureole. the outermost region of the sun's atmosphere, visible as a faint halo during a solar eclipse

3. architect the flat vertical face of a cornice just above the soffit

4. something resembling a corona or halo

5. a circular chandelier suspended from the roof of a church

6. botany

   1. the trumpet-shaped part of the corolla of daffodils and similar plants; the crown

   2. a crown of leafy outgrowths from inside the petals of some flowers

7. anatomy a crownlike structure, such as the top of the head

8. zoology the head or upper surface of an animal, such as the body of an echinoid or the disc and arms of a crinoid

9. a long cigar with blunt ends

10. physics short for corona discharge

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corona Scientific  

/ kə-rō′nə /

• coronas
  plural

1. The luminous, irregular envelope of gas outside the chromosphere of a star. The Sun's corona is composed of ionized gas between approximately 1,000,000°K and 2,000,000°K and has an extremely low density. This phenomenon is visible only during a solar eclipse.

2. A faintly colored luminous ring appearing to surround a celestial body (such as the Moon or Sun) that is visible through a haze or thin cloud, caused by diffraction of light from suspended matter in the intervening medium.

3. Also called aureole

4. A faint glow of the air in the region of very strong electric fields, caused by ionization of the air molecules and flow of current in that region in corona discharge.

5. The crownlike upper portion of a bodily part or structure, such as the top of the head.

6. A crown-shaped structure on the inner side of the petals of some flowers, such as the daffodil.

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Usage

Where does corona come from? Flowers and crows, priests and soldiers, suns and moons, kings and queens, lagers and viruses? What could all these disparate things possibly have in common? Well, in one way or another, they are involved in the rich history of the word corona. Corona entered English around 1555–65. It was borrowed directly from the Latin corōna, meaning “garland, wreath, crown.” Its plural form is corōnae. A verb form of corōna was corōnāre, “to crown, wreathe,” ultimate source of the English coronation, “the act or ceremony of crowning a king, queen, or other sovereign.”Let’s start with a glimpse into life in ancient Rome. Back then, a corōna served various ceremonial and symbolic functions. People wore corōnae of flowers at festivals, for example, or used them to ornament images of gods. Priests donned corōnae when performing important rituals and sacrifices. Different types of corōna were used as military decorations honoring various acts of bravery. For instance, the corōna mūrālis, or “walled crown,” was a gold crown fashioned in the shape of battlements and was awarded to a soldier who was the first to enter a besieged town or fortress. One especially high honor was the corōna cīvica (“civic crown”), bestowed on a citizen who saved a fellow citizen’s life. It was also known as corōna querca, or “oak crown,” because it was made with oak leaves. This crown became a symbol for emperors and appeared on coins. Outside of literal crowns worn on the head, the Latin corōna could be used for various things that resemble crowns in their form, including cornices and the halo around the sun. These applications of corōna informed the earliest uses of the word in English. The oldest recorded sense of corona in English refers to the projecting, slab-like part of a classical cornice. Next up in English’s record, evidenced around the mid-1600s, is corona meaning “a ring of light, as around the sun or moon”—like a figurative crown atop the head of a celestial body. Today, astronomers specifically use corona for the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere, which is visible during a total solar eclipse. Dig deeperAs we’ve seen, corona comes from the Latin word for “crown.” So does the very word crown!Much older than corona, crown is found in English around 1125–1175. Crown developed from the Middle English coroune, among other forms, which came from the Anglo-French coroune, in turn from the Latin corona. Now, the Latin corōna has its own fascinating past. It was borrowed from the ancient Greek korṓnē, a word used for a kind of crow or seabird, as well as for anything curved or hooked, presumably due to the shape of the beak of such birds.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• coronae
  plural
• coronas
  plural

Etymology

Origin of corona

First recorded in 1555–65; from Latin corōna “garland, crown” ( see crown), from Greek korṓnē “crown, curved object”; akin to korōnís “curved, beaked,” kórax “crow, raven” ( see crow ¹)

Explanation

A corona is a glowing circle of light around an object. You can see the Sun's corona during a total solar eclipse. The word corona refers in a general sense to a circle or ring of light. In scientific terms, a corona is the very outer part of the Sun's gaseous atmosphere. If you want to see the corona of the Sun, you'll have to use a special viewing device during the next solar eclipse (don't look directly at the Sun — it's not safe!). In the 17th century, corona referred to a circular crown, from the Latin word for "crown or garland."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

corona Corona coronae coronas

House had asked Walker the moment the glowing corona of totality disappeared and the sun re-emerged.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

The corona took on an unusually rich golden hue.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 20, 2026

Trudy Crielaard, a chemistry teacher who lives near Utrecht in the Netherlands, recalled trying to watch the eclipse in 1999 when clouds obscured the sun’s corona.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026

This is the Sun's atmosphere - called the corona.

From BBC ● Aug. 11, 2026

I wasn't paying attention to anything else—just trying to set the tableaux—and when Javi finally shuffled into position, the whole moon glowed behind him, casting a pale corona around his head.

From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely

Sales in Constellation’s beer business, which includes Corona and Modelo, rose 5%, while its wine and spirits business saw a 17% increase in sales.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

Its non-alcoholic version of Corona has become a top seller in the industry with limited direct investment, the company said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

The Corona Centennial High football team has an interesting blend of players spelling their similar first names differently, leaving coach Matt Logan to be the referee as to which parents got the spelling correct.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 4, 2026

Nolan Scott of Corona del Mar continues to make impact as a tight end and defensive end.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026

Then she had to go down to the candy store to get the Sunday paper; then to the cigar store to get Papa a nickel Corona.

From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith

"Such widespread coronae have implications for the removal of hydrocarbons emitted by trees, subtle tree leaf damage and could have broader implications for the health of trees, forests and the atmosphere."

From Science Daily ● Apr. 21, 2026

Images of Miranda taken by the Voyager 2 spacecraft reveal enormous ridges and steep cliffs known as coronae.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 2, 2026

Its crust consists of 75% lowland lava plains, numerous volcanic features, and many large coronae, which are the expression of subsurface volcanism.

From Textbooks ● Oct. 13, 2016

The circular features associated with coronae are tectonic ridges and cracks, and most of the mountains of Venus also owe their existence to tectonic forces.

From Textbooks ● Oct. 13, 2016

Miranda, one of the moons belonging to Uranus, features a patchwork of ridges and cliffs, grooved structures called coronae, and massive canyons up to twelve times deeper than the Grand Canyon.

From "We Are the Ants" by Shaun David Hutchinson

Who needs Parthenon or Birth of Venus when blue lights swirl low, pink coronas kiss clouds, neon greens arc, deep reds stripe across stars.

From Scientific American ● Jun. 19, 2023

However, one of the few available approaches to analyze the composition of protein coronas requires instruments that many nanomedicine laboratories lack.

From Salon ● Jan. 8, 2023

It was jacaranda season when I moved to the city, and simply to catch sight of those trees, with their lavender coronas, feels akin to coming home.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 13, 2022

She mainly depicted the female form, drawing it with big, wiry loops surrounded by coronas of bright color.

From New York Times ● May 27, 2021

Beneath her fingernails, the frost makes billions of tiny diadems and coronas on the slats of the bench, a lattice of dumbfounding complexity.

From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr