Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A luminous halo visible at the height of the sun and parallel to the horizon, caused by the sun's rays reflecting off atmospheric ice crystals.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun meteorology A
luminous halo , each side of thesun parallel to the horizon, caused byrefraction ofsunlight through ice crystals.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a luminous halo parallel to the horizon at the altitude of the sun; caused by ice crystals in the atmosphere
Etymologies
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Examples
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treeseed commented on the word parhelic circle
A parhelic circle is a halo, an optical phenomenon appearing as a horizontal white line on the same altitude as the sun, or occasionally the Moon. If complete, it stretches all around the sky, but more commonly it only appears in sections.
_Wikipedia
February 24, 2008