Word of the Day for Friday, June 10, 2011
umbra \UHM-bruh\, noun:
1. The invariable or characteristic accompaniment or companion of a person or thing.
2. Shade; shadow.
3. In astronomy, the complete shadow of an opaque body, as a planet, where the direct light from the source of illumination is completely cut off.
4. A phantom or shadowy apparition, as of someone or something not physically present; ghost; spectral image.
The spectre of Jimmy Carter's umbra of being the Worst President of the United States has finally lifted for the B.O.; but alas, there is no more shadow, just by him looking in the mirror he will now see who holds the title of the Worst President of the United States!
--Spy Maker, JSA's Blog
She leaned over me, dark and mother-warm, and I could hardly breathe in her umbra of cigarettes and gin.-- Jonathan Strahan, Eidolon
The umbra - shade, shadow, uninvited guest - is invited in; as a dream, the guest becomes host to a sensuous pleasure that is all the more real for being an imitation, and all the more an artifice for being imaginal, "only" a dream.-- Patricia Cox Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity: Studies in the Imagination of a Culture
Umbra is borrowed from the same word in Latin, meaning "shadow."
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