ignis fatuus
noun
a flitting phosphorescent light seen at night, chiefly over marshy ground, and believed to be due to spontaneous combustion of gas from decomposed organic matter.
ignes fatui
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pluralof ignis fatuus.plural
The grammatical form denoting more than one person, place, thing, or idea.
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.
Upon the whole, no person could be less liable than myself to be led away from the severe precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition.
From The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Volume 1 by Nathaniel Parker Willis
Why should not clever Jack have this in view as much as the ignes fatui of woolsacks and mitres?
From Some Private Views by James Payn
She found another—and another, but they fled from her like ignes fatui.
From The Secret Witness by George Gibbs
However these ignes fatui may glimmer in their wanderings, tumultuously assemble, or abruptly depart; such confluence or dispersion contributes nothing to effective thought.
From On the Nature of Thought or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence by John Haslam
The psychic fluid is susceptible to the light, absorbs and emits it, and so the spirit forms are shining like great ignes fatui on our old earth.
From The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars by L. P. Gratacap
