aurora
- A natural light display in the sky, especially in polar regions, caused by charged solar particles interacting with the atmosphere; also poetically, the dawn.
In a sentence
- Travelers journeyed to northern Norway hoping to witness the aurora rippling green and violet across the Arctic sky.
- The poet described the aurora of the summer morning as a curtain of rose and gold drawn slowly open.
Usage note. When referring to the light phenomenon, specify 'aurora borealis' (northern) or 'aurora australis' (southern) for precision; 'aurora' alone can also mean simply the dawn in literary contexts.
Where it comes from
English aurora — “dawn; polar light display” · entered English 15th c.
Directly from Latin 'Aurora', the Roman goddess of the dawn, cognate with Sanskrit 'ushas' and Greek 'Eos', all from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to shine' or 'dawn'. The word was used in classical Latin for the dawn itself. It entered English in the 15th century, initially as a poetic term for dawn, and later applied to polar light phenomena.