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
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.
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
It flashed through his mind that he had wasted two months pursuing an ignis fatuus, only to have nothing but bitterness at the end, when it might have been ——!
From Six Prize Hawaiian Stories of the Kilohana Art League by Armstrong, W. N.
The ignis fatuus is almost extinct; so much so that Jack-o’-the-Lantern has died out of the village folklore.
From Wild Life in a Southern County by Jefferies, Richard
The light you behold is an ignis fatuus.
From Guy Fawkes or The Gunpowder Treason by Ainsworth, William Harrison
A few nights afterwards it was there again, and must clearly have been some kind of ignis fatuus.
From Wild Life in a Southern County by Jefferies, Richard
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.
