cirrus cloud
1
3.8
- noun
- /ˈsɪrəs klaʊd/
- Specialized
:
nube cirro
- The sky was adorned with beautiful cirrus clouds that stretched like delicate wisps across the blue expanse.
- wispy cirrus clouds
- high cirrus cloud
- thin cirrus clouds
Examples
-
The ice crystals act like cirrus clouds, allowing sunlight through but reflecting infrared radiation back toward the Earth.
Academic text (1991) -
Cirrus clouds have been observed up to 100 hPa and into the stratosphere.
Blog text (28) -
We have vertical walls of cirrus cloud formations.
-
The sky is blue, with few high cirrus clouds so motionless they seem pasted on.
Fiction book (2000) -
Just 2 percent more cirrus cloud cover causes the same amount of global warming as does 10 percent of the present anthropogenic carbon dioxide forcing.
Academic text (1991) -
I was tasked to measure cirrus clouds and determine if they increased or decreased the albedo of the Earth.
Blog text (1) -
By raising the level of humidity, air traffic can lead to an increase in the number of cirrus clouds, whose effect may be even stronger than that caused by ice-crystal contrails.
Academic text (1991) -
She looks up through the bare trees, and there are high cirrus clouds, brightly white against the palest blue imaginable.
Fiction book (1995) -
The water was frigid and the color of glass, and cirrus clouds were indistinct chalky streaks in a fading sky.
Fiction book (1999) -
My favorites are the high-altitude or cirrus clouds; the strong predominance of thin lines and powerful shapes they tend to create fit well with my vision of self-expression.
Academic text (2006)
Synonyms
693
1.0
A group of tiny water drops or ice high in the sky
2
7.0
A thin wispy white cloud that forms high in the sky
A long thin white cloud high in the sky that looks like a horse's tail
How Thin
- Specialized
1
3.8
- Specialized
- Specialized
- Specialized
1
5.9
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning of 'cirrus cloud' is directly derived from combining 'cirrus' (a thin, filamentous cloud type) with 'cloud' (a visible mass in the atmosphere); together they denote a cloud that has the cirrus properties (thin, wispy, high-altitude, ice-crystal composition). This is a regular noun-noun compositional pattern and the term is technical/cognate across many languages, so a learner who knows both constituents will readily understand it.
Etymology
Cirrus cloud: The name cirrus cloud comes from the Latin word cirrus, meaning 'curl' or 'lock of hair'. Because these clouds look like thin, wispy hair high in the sky, the name came to mean a thin, high cloud.