Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈwɛl.kən/
welkin (plural welkins)
- (archaic, poetic) The sky, the region of clouds; the upper air; aether; the heavens.
- Synonyms: lift, firmament
- circa 1388 Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales:
- This day in mirth and revel to dispend / Till on the welkin shone the starres bright
- circa 1610-11 William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I scene ii:
- smallcaps Miranda: […] The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch, / But that the sea, mounting to th' welkin's cheek, / Dashes the fire out.
- c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o' Bedlam” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):
- I knowe more then Apollo,
for oft when hee ly’s sleeping
I see yͤ starrs att bloudie warres
in yͤ wounded welkin weeping
- I knowe more then Apollo,
- 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 11:
- To him, the spirit lodged within Billy, and looking out from his welkin eyes as from windows, that ineffability it was which made the dimple in his dyed cheek, suppled his joints, and dancing in his yellow curls made him preeminently the Handsome Sailor.
- Russian: небеса
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