From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Aurora \Au*ro"ra\, n.; pl. E. {Auroras}, L. (rarely used)
{Auror[ae]}. [L. aurora, for ausosa, akin to Gr. ?, ?, dawn,
Skr. ushas, and E. east.]
1. The rising light of the morning; the dawn of day; the
redness of the sky just before the sun rises.
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2. The rise, dawn, or beginning. --Hawthorne.
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3. (Class. Myth.) The Roman personification of the dawn of
day; the goddess of the morning. The poets represented her
a rising out of the ocean, in a chariot, with rosy fingers
dropping gentle dew.
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4. (Bot.) A species of crowfoot. --Johnson.
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5. The aurora borealis or aurora australis (northern or
southern lights).
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{Aurora borealis}, i. e., northern daybreak; popularly called
northern lights. A luminous meteoric phenomenon, visible
only at night, and supposed to be of electrical origin.
This species of light usually appears in streams,
ascending toward the zenith from a dusky line or bank, a
few degrees above the northern horizon; when reaching
south beyond the zenith, it forms what is called the
corona, about a spot in the heavens toward which the
dipping needle points. Occasionally the aurora appears as
an arch of light across the heavens from east to west.
Sometimes it assumes a wavy appearance, and the streams of
light are then called merry dancers. They assume a variety
of colors, from a pale red or yellow to a deep red or
blood color. The
{Aurora australis}is a corresponding phenomenon in the
southern hemisphere, the streams of light ascending in the
same manner from near the southern horizon.
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From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
aurora borealis
n 1: the aurora of the northern hemisphere [syn: {aurora
borealis}, {northern lights}]
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