English
aureole
Pronunciation
  • (British) IPA: /ˈɔːriːəʊl/
  • (America) IPA: /ˈɔːriːoʊl/
Noun

aureole (plural aureoles)

  1. A circle of light or halo around the head of a deity or a saint.
    • 1915, W.S. Maugham, "Of Human Bondage", chapter 122:
      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.
    • 1916, Edwin Arllington Robinson, The Man Against the Sky, "The Voice of Age":
      She feels, with all our furniture,
      Room yet for something more secure
      Than our self-kindled aureoles
      To guide our poor forgotten souls […]
    • 2004, Andrea Levy, Small Island (novel), London: Review, Chapter Four, p. 69,
      Those white women whose superiority encircled them like an aureole, could quieten any raucous gathering by just placing a finger to a lip.
  2. (by extension) Any luminous or colored ring that encircles something.
    • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 1,
      It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard […]
  3. (astronomy) A corona.
  4. (geology) A ring around an igneous intrusion.
    • 1990, Roger Mason, Petrology of the Metamorphic Rocks, Chapter 3: "Metamorphism associated with igneous intrusions":
      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.
Translations

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