streal means beam, ray (e.g. of light). It carries an Arena rating of 1632, earned across 12 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, streal ranks #1,460 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #1,712 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #2,491 of 17,124 for Most Sublime Words, #2,568 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words.
streal is pronounced /ˈstɹiːl/.
Why “streal” is a great word
A beam or ray of light, or an arrow or similar missile. From Middle English strele, stral, from Old English strǣl ("beam, ray, arrow, shaft, dart, missile"), from Proto-West Germanic *strālu ("arrow, ray, beam"), from Proto-Indo-European *strēl- *strēlā- ("arrow, beam"). Unlike "ray," which is confined to a line of light, or "arrow," which denotes a projectile from a bow, a streal is the ancient, poetic union of the two—the luminous trajectory and the fatal shaft seen as one phenomenon. It is the last slanted gold of sunset piercing the forest gloom; the cruel iron flight from a longbow heard but not seen; and the cold, distant light of a star arriving centuries after its source has died—the same word for the thing that guides and the thing that kills, for all paths through air are, in the end, a kind of fleeting wound.
Etymology
From Middle English strele, stral, from Old English strǣl (“beam, ray, arrow, shaft, dart, missile”), from Proto-West Germanic *strālu (“arrow, ray, beam”), from Proto-Indo-European *strēl- *strēlā- (“arrow, beam”). Cognate with West Frisian striel (“arrow, dart, shaft”), Dutch straal (“radius, ray, beam, stream”), German Strahl (“beam, ray, spurt”), Swedish stråle (“beam, ray”), Icelandic strjál (“arrow”), Lithuanian strėlė (“arrow, dart, jib”), Russian стрела (strela, “arrow, dart”). See also streel.
noun
- Beam, ray (e.g. of light).
- An arrow.
- Anything thrown or cast; a missile.e.g.“With streals all wounded, with streals was I all wounded.” — 1896, The Scottish Review, volume 27, page 299:
- The pupil of the eye.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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