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
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.
Was this light of hope that gilded so beautifully the sad, dark hour of human woe, only a mocking ignis fatuus, so soon to go out in everlasting darkness?
From Nurse and Spy in the Union Army The Adventures and Experiences of a Woman in Hospitals, Camps, and Battle-Fields by Edmonds, S. Emma E.
How malignantly must this strange ignis fatuus, thought he, dance into the nightly conflict of all these clashing relations!
From Titan: A Romance Vol. II (of 2) by Jean Paul
After all, am I the victim of an illusion—following but an ignis fatuus kindled by my own vanity?”
From The White Gauntlet by Reid, Mayne
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
XII.298.We are concerned not with names but with things, so that Dr. Hort may give his ignis fatuus what appellation he likes, only why he calls it Syrian it is hard to determine.
From A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, Vol. II. by Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose
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.
