HALO • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Halo

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/hˈeɪloʊ/ Listen

noun

Halo n. (pl. halos)

A luminous circle, usually prismatically colored, round the sun or moon, and supposed to be caused by the refraction of light through crystals of ice in the atmosphere. Connected with halos there are often white bands, crosses, or arches, resulting from the same atmospheric conditions.

A circle of light; especially, the bright ring represented in painting as surrounding the heads of saints and other holy persons; a glory; a nimbus.

An ideal glory investing, or affecting one's perception of, an object.

A colored circle around a nipple; an areola.

verb

Halo v. t. & v. i. (past & past part. haloed; pres. part. haloing) To form, or surround with, a halo; to encircle with, or as with, a halo. "The fire That haloed round his saintly brow."

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Etymology of 'Halo'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Halo" Quotes from Famous Books

... St. Margaret and St. Catharine appeared to her. They were always in a halo of glory; she could see that their heads were crowned with jewels; and she heard their voices, which were sweet and mild. She did not distinguish their arms or limbs. She heard them more frequently than she saw them; and the usual time when she heard them was when the church bells ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... being—spread over the woman's face; the man's long arm wrapped around his wealth, at once protecting and defiant; his head flung back against the world, while his eyes studied humbly the mystery that he grasped. The night lamp behind them threw a halo around the mother and her child, and the great trinity of all times and all faiths gleamed immortal upon the canvas of the simple ...

— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... apron, but no cap—as is the custom in Italy. She was a Piedmontese, for in her hair she wore several of those large pins with round heads of silver filigree placed in a semicircle at the back of her head, until they formed a kind of halo. ...

— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux

... carried his victorious arms over the fertile plains of Palestine, till he stood a conqueror amidst the palaces of Persepolis, and finally halted only on the frontiers of Hindostan, arrested in his progress not by the arms of his enemies but by the revolt of his soldiers? He flung a halo of glory around the last days of Greece, like the bright light of a meteor, whose course he resembled equally in the rapidity and brilliancy of his career. With him dies the interest of Grecian story: the intrigues and disputes of his successors, destitute of general interest, ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... and shot—and fell; Nor came one back his wounds to tell. And full in the midst rose Keenan, tall In the gloom, like a martyr awaiting his fall, While the circle-stroke of his sabre, swung 'Round his head, like a halo there, ...

— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

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