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Iridescence   Listen
Iridescence

noun
1.
The visual property of something having a milky brightness and a play of colors from the surface.  Synonym: opalescence.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Iridescence" Quotes from Famous Books



... beryl; and a few minutes later I was certain that it was aquamarine; on my way home another glance showed the color of forget-me-nots on its plumage, and as I looked at it on my table, it was Nile green. Yet the feathers were painted in flat color, without especial sheen or iridescence, and when I finally analyzed it, I found it to be a delicate calamine blue. It actually had the appearance of a too strong color, as when a glistening surface reflects the sun. From beak to tail it threw off ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... features were rigid, the woman's glance spoke to Baldur, spoke eloquently. Her eyes were—or was it the iris?—symbols of a soul-state, of a rare emotion, not of sex, nor yet sexless. The pupils seemed powdered with a strange iridescence. He became more troubled than before. What did the curious creature want of him! She was neither coquette nor cocotte, flirtation was not hinted by her intense expression. He resumed his former position, but her eyes made his shoulders burn, as if ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... indeed were doubtless but the iridescence of his idleness, and they were presently lost in a new light from Maria. She had a fresh fact for him before the week was out, and she practically met him with it on his appearing one night. He hadn't on this day ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James

... grey; when she left the house a drizzle had begun to wet the flagstones, and every lamp-post was now hooded with ghostly iridescence. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... living monster, a revolting compound of a large paunch with eyes, and a multitude of nervy, snaky, out-reaching, twining, grasping, tentacular arms, several feet in length, I should think, if extended, but then lying in a crowded undulating heap; the creature was dying, and the iridescence was passing over what seemed to be its body in waves of colour, such as glorify the last hour of the dolphin. But not the colours of the rainbow could glorify this hideous, abominable form, which ought to be left to riot in ocean depths, with its loathsome kindred. You ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird

... distance there was a riot of rainbow tints—violet, pink, and pale orange. It seemed inconceivable that such barrenness could produce such wealth of color; nothing could have been more beautiful—not even the changing colors on a pigeon's neck—than the coppery iridescence, shading to cobalt and blue on some ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning

... him; it looked a joyous and delightful prospect. He gazed on the bright vision of sin, on the iridescent waters of pleasure; and did not know that the brightness was a mirage of the burning desert, the iridescence a film of corruption over ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar

... me turn up the magnification a little and see if—" Banner watched as Harcraft turned control buttons, skillfully increasing magnification without losing the held of view. Suddenly, the object exploded into iridescence. "What—" ...
— Unspecialist • Murray F. Yaco

... the clear pearliness of early June: high in air the big cumulus clouds rode golden-white, trailing their shadows over the dappled land beneath; the branches of hawthorn gleamed silvery amidst the pearly blossom; a wine-pale sunlight washed with iridescence sky and earth. In the great sloping field, which held six days' hard ploughing between its stone ramparts, the granite monolith stood four-square to all the winds that blew, defying ploughs and weathers. The two brown horses waited by the highest hedge, ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... Esseintes awoke one morning recovered; no longer was he tormented by the throbbing of his neck or by his racking cough. Instead, he had an ineffable sensation of contentment, a lightness of mind in which thought was sparklingly clear, turning from a turbid, opaque, green color to a liquid iridescence magical with tender ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... Polish peasant has often more head and heart than the German peasant in some districts. Not infrequently did I find in the meanest Pole that original wit (not Gemuthswitz, humour) which on every occasion bubbles forth with wonderful iridescence, and that dreamy sentimental trait, that brilliant flashing of an Ossianic feeling for nature whose sudden outbreaks on passionate occasions are as involuntary as the rising of the blood into ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks



Words linked to "Iridescence" :   opalescence, iridesce, iridescent, brightness



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