nimbus
Americannoun
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Classical Mythology. a shining cloud sometimes surrounding a deity when on earth.
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a cloud, aura, atmosphere, etc., surrounding a person or thing.
The candidate was encompassed with a nimbus of fame.
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halo.
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the type of dense clouds or cloud mass with ragged edges, that yields rain or snow; a rain cloud.
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(initial capital letter) one of a series of polar-orbiting meteorological and environmental research satellites, the last of which Nimbus 7, launched 1978, was the first satellite designed to monitor atmospheric pollutants.
noun
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a dark grey rain-bearing cloud
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( in combination )
cumulonimbus clouds
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an emanation of light surrounding a saint or deity
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a representation of this emanation
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a surrounding aura or atmosphere
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of nimbus
First recorded in 1600–10; from Latin, “rainstorm, rain cloud, thundercloud, cloud”; akin to Latin nebula and Greek nephélē, néphos “cloud,” and Slavic ( Polish ) niebo “sky, heaven”
Explanation
A nimbus is a glowing light that encircles someone or something. A shadowy figure standing in front of your car's headlights might have a nimbus around it. One kind of nimbus is the holy glow that's said to surround the body or head of a saint — a halo, in other words. Many religious works of art feature Christian saints, each with a radiant nimbus. There is a more scientific kind of nimbus as well, a large, gray rain cloud. In Latin, nimbus simply means "cloud," possibly connected to nebula, "mist, vapor, or fog."
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:
Scheib’s staging, just Bayreuth’s 11th “Parsifal” production, paid homage to Wieland Wagner’s breakthrough 1951 minimalist sets with a circle of light that represented both the knights’ round table and a flying nimbus above the wasteland.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 26, 2023
With his bald pate and nimbus of gray, scowling behind spectacles, he had long been a favorite of editorial cartoonists.
From New York Times ● Jun. 8, 2023
Humanizing Bunny is in keeping with the show's general nimbus of empathy for all of its personalities, even its villains.
From Salon ● Jul. 6, 2022
This is a kingdom in which the phrase artificial intelligence bathes “everything it was applied to with the nimbus of a bright future.”
From Washington Post ● Nov. 17, 2020
The world seemed to dim, and Lazlo, looking up, perceived the moonlight now only as a nimbus around the citadel’s edges.
From "Strange the Dreamer" by Laini Taylor
Device, the Virgin and Child, their heads surrounded with nimbi; the former holds in her right hand three lilies, the latter a globe and cross.
From Notes and Queries, Number 75, April 5, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc. by Various
They and their emblems are painted; the nimbi and the ribs of the shells are gilded.
From The Shores of the Adriatic The Austrian Side, The Küstenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia by Jackson, F. Hamilton (Frederick Hamilton)
Both mother and child wear heavy nimbi, ornamented with gold.
From The Madonna in Art by Hurll, Estelle M. (Estelle May)
There are various Bernini saints and seraphs in stucco-sculpture, astride of the tablets and door- tops, backing against their rusty machinery of coppery nimbi and egg-shaped cloudlets.
From Italian Hours by James, Henry
Each have nimbi of a blue colour, surmounted by crosses, with globular extremities.
From Notes and Queries, Vol. IV, Number 88, July 5, 1851 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Geneologists, etc. by Various
Even when the music whips up complex, noisy nimbuses of competing motifs, the fast, finely judged changes within the dense activity are preparing you for variations on the weather.
From New York Times ● Aug. 22, 2022
White dogwood branches looked like clouds, the pale saucers of their blossoms arranged in white nimbuses.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 29, 2018
A mid-17th-century watercolor with gold and ink shows them with flaming nimbuses over their heads, rather than the round halos of Western art, and yet Mary is dressed in Western style.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 12, 2015
The village houses receded through shifting distances of pale gloom; one could scarcely distinguish the white slants of their roofs, and the lamp-lights which shone out newly in some of the windows made rosy nimbuses.
From Jerome, A Poor Man A Novel by Freeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins
Their brandished spears made nimbuses over their heads; and this time their response was like the baying of hounds.
From Sacrifice by Whitman, Stephen French
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.
