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mandorla

British  
/ mænˈdɔːlə /

noun

  1. Also called: vesica.  (in painting, sculpture, etc) an almond-shaped area of light, usually surrounding the resurrected Christ or the Virgin at the Assumption

"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 mandorla

from Italian, literally: almond, from Late Latin amandula; see almond

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:

She “bursts forth from the Virgin’s traditional flaming mandorla, throws off her star-spangled cloak and dashes straight toward us, beaming, into the future,” New York Times art critic Holland Cotter wrote in 1999.

From Washington Post Sep. 7, 2021

Another, composed of gleaming copper radiates a tawny mandorla.

From New York Times Feb. 27, 2020

Oval layers of crimson cloth echo the almond shape of a radiant mandorla within which the Trinity hovers.

From Los Angeles Times Nov. 21, 2016

The painted discs that had become his signature function variously as wheels, radial engines, sunbursts and air force roundels; a red propeller flaps, and a biplane hangs like an angel in a mandorla of color.

From Time Magazine Archive

Surrounding her are angels supporting the clouds which make an oval halo round her, a mandorla.

From Donatello, by Lord Balcarres by Crawford, David Lindsay, Earl of

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