Word of the Day:
friar's lantern (FRY-uhrz LAN-tuhrn)noun
A phosphorescent light seen over marshy ground at night, caused by spontaneous combustion of gases emitted by decomposing organic matter. A synonym is foxfire (not Firefox), especially for luminescence produced by fungi.
Etymology
The first use of the term is in John Milton's 1632 poem L'Allegro: "She was pinched and pulled, she said; / And he, by Friar's lantern led."]
Usage
"Question: What do you get when you cross a firefly with a tobacco plant. Answer: A cigarette that lights itself. The joke quickly made the rounds after a group of genetic engineers in California earlier this month announced that they had transferred into the cells of a tobacco plant the gene that causes a firefly to glow. The tobacco plant seems to rise out of the page like a will-o'-the-wisp or friar's lantern." — Chet Raymo; A Tale of a Firefly and a Tobacco Leaf; The Boston Globe; Nov 24, 1986.
fóxfìre[fóx・fìre]
| will-o'-the-wisp | (noun) A pale light sometimes seen at night over marshy ground. |
| Synonyms: | friar's lantern, ignis fatuus, jack-o'-lantern |
| Usage: | The white face of a dying man seemed suddenly to have floated up out of the darkness, to have come to him like a will-o'-the-wisp from the swamp. |
