aurora borealis
4
7.6
- noun
- /əˈrɔrə bɔˈriəlɪs/
- Specialized
:
aurora boreal
- Suddenly, I had to laugh at myself as I realized that, for the first time, I was seeing the aurora borealis—the northern lights.
- aurora borealis lights
- aurora borealis, or northern
- display of the aurora borealis
I would love to go to, I don't know, like Iceland to look at the Aurora borealis or go to New Zealand and nerd out in The Hobbit town.
- I would love to go to, I don't know, like Iceland to look at the Aurora borealis or go to New Zealand and nerd out in The Hobbit town.
- There's this thing that happens in the sky and people that see it, kind of like Aurora borealis, and people that see it kind of just go crazy.
Examples
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I've never seen the aurora borealis.
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The aurora borealis flickered green on the northern horizon in a splendid display, and after I buried Bessie, I stood in the snow for a long hour, looking up.
Fiction book (1996) -
I saw the aurora borealis.
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There, in the north, just over the house, was the aurora borealis.
Fiction book (1999) -
Northern Norway is one of the best places in the world to see the famous aurora borealis, also known as the northern lights.
Blog text (8) -
Aurora borealis can be found in the northern hemisphere in Alaska, Canada, and Scandinavia.
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The aurora borealis lit up the night sky with vibrant colors, captivating everyone who witnessed it.
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Many travelers visit Alaska during winter to experience the stunning display of the aurora borealis.
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I stood outside in the freezing cold, mesmerized by the breathtaking aurora borealis dancing overhead.
Synonyms
12
7.4
Bright moving lights in the night sky near the North or South Pole
8
3.6
Bright colourful lights that appear in the night sky near the North Pole
Surface Forms
Morphology
aurora + borealis
The meaning is directly compositional: 'aurora' (bright polar lights) combined with 'borealis' (northern) yields 'northern aurora' or the northern lights. This Latin-derived phrase is used cross-linguistically and follows a clear modifier + noun pattern, so a learner who knows both constituents can infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
The name aurora borealis comes from old Latin words: aurora meaning 'dawn' and borealis meaning 'northern'. People thought the bright, moving lights in the night sky looked like a dawn in the north, so the name explains the 'northern lights' we see today.