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corposant

British  
/ ˈkɔːpəˌzænt /

noun

  1. another name for Saint Elmo's fire

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of corposant

C17: from Portuguese corpo-santo, literally: holy body, from Latin corpus sanctum

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Everybody knows nowadays that a corposant is nothing whatever but an electrical phenomenon, and therefore merely an indication that the atmosphere is surcharged with electricity.

From The Log of a Privateersman by W. (William) Rainey

They had played around him as the corposant flickers around the mast-head of a ship....

From The Wind Bloweth by Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne

I looked, and saw a corposant, as it is called at sea,—a St. Elmo's fire,—burning at the end of the crossjack-yard.

From Stories by English Authors: the Sea by Various

There was fever between the decks; there was fever in black hearts; of dark nights a corposant burned now at this masthead, now at that.

From Sir Mortimer by Mary Johnston

His vivid sense of beauty even hovers sometimes like a corposant over the somewhat stiff lines of his Latin prose.

From Among My Books Second Series by James Russell Lowell

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