aureole
verbEtymology From Middle English aureole, from Old French aureole, from Medieval Latin aureola (corona) (“golden (crown)”). Doublet of oriole.
1
To surround with, or as if with, a halo.
aureole
nounUK /ˈɔː.ɹiː.əʊl/ · US /ˈɔɹ.i.oʊl/
Etymology From Middle English aureole, from Old French aureole, from Medieval Latin aureola (corona) (“golden (crown)”). Doublet of oriole.
1
A circle of light or halo around the head of a deity or a saint.
- The lady's hair no woman could possess without feeling it her pride. It was the daily theme of her lady's-maid,—a natural aureole to her head.1859, George Meredith, chapter 16, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC:
- They sat quietly, side by side, without speaking. Philip enjoyed having her near him. He was warmed by her radiant health. A glow of life seemed like an aureole to shine about her.1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 122”, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:
2 more examples
- She feels, with all our furniture, Room yet for something more secure Than our self-kindled aureoles To guide our poor forgotten souls […]1916, Edwin Arlington Robinson, “The Voice of Age”, in The Man Against the Sky:
- Those white women whose superiority encircled them like an aureole, could quieten any raucous gathering by just placing a finger to a lip.2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 4, in Small Island, London: Review, page 69:
2
Broadly Any luminous or colored ring that encircles something.
- It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard […]1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 1:
- The dust of the road and his long, wiry hair made aureoles of red about him in the westering light […]1972, Ursula K. Le Guin, chapter 6, in The Farthest Shore, Atheneum Books:
3
Astronomy, Natural sciences A corona.
- Cleavage and folds are imprinted are overprinted by the contact metamorphic aureole, indicating that they belong to a pre-intrustive episode of rock deformation and accompanying regional deformation.1990, Roger Mason, Petrology of the Metamorphic Rocks, Chapter 3: "Metamorphism associated with igneous intrusions"
- Derived terms
- aureolate, aureoled, aureole hat, inaureole