ignis fatuus
Americannoun
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Also called friar's lantern, will-o'-the-wisp. 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.
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something deluding or misleading.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of ignis fatuus
1555–65; < Medieval Latin: literally, foolish fire
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.
"If we pursue the ignis fatuus of secular education in a pagan land, destitute of other light," quoting Sir Herbert again, "then we English will lose India without those Indians gaining any future."
From Religion and the War by Various
The ignis fatuus was sometimes supposed to be the soul of an unbaptised child.
From History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne (Vol. 2 of 2) by Lecky, William Edward Hartpole
Many fortunes have been spent by the unscientific in the chase after this, to them, ignis fatuus.
Diogenes is not the only man whose disturbed digestion has led multitudes, like an ignis fatuus, into the bogs and marshes of falsehood.
From Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851 by Various
Never did a geographical entity seem so to play the ignis fatuus with the world as did the River.
From The Columbia River Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce by Lyman, William Denison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
