auroral means pertaining to the dawn; dawning, eastern, like a new beginning. It carries an Arena rating of 1757, earned across 70 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, auroral ranks #39 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #240 of 42,747 for Qualifying, #695 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #2,697 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
auroral is pronounced /ɔːˈɹɔəɹəl/.
Why “auroral” is a great word
Pertaining to or resembling the dawn, or the luminous atmospheric phenomena of the aurora borealis or aurora australis. From the Latin aurōra ("dawn, goddess of the dawn") + the English adjectival suffix -al; first recorded in English 1545–55. Unlike "crepuscular," which lingers in the indistinct half-light of twilight, or "nocturnal," which belongs to the deep, unbroken dark of night, auroral heralds a beginning. It is the first cold, clear band of light that defines the horizon, the spectral green curtains wavering in a polar sky, and the quality of light that renders snow luminous while everything else remains in shadow—the promise that something is arriving, even if what arrives is only another day.
Etymology
From aurora + -al.
adj
- Pertaining to the dawn; dawning, eastern, like a new beginning.e.g.“This first created light is properly the auroral light.” — 1684, Francis Bampfield, Miqra ̕qadōsh […] A Grammatical Opening of Some Hebrew Words and Phrases, London: John Lawrence, page 36:
- Rosy in colour.e.g.“Her cheeks suffused with an auroral blush,” — 1863, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Student’s Tale”, in Tales of a Wayside Inn, Boston: Ticknor and Fields, page 38:
- Pertaining to the aurora borealis or aurora australis.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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