ray - What does it mean?
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Definition of 'ray'English
Etymology 1
Via (etyl), from (etyl) rai, from (etyl) .
Noun
( en-noun)
A beam of light or radiation.
- I saw a ray of light through the clouds.
(zoology) A rib-like reinforcement of bone or cartilage in a fish's fin.
(zoology) One of the spheromeres of a radiate, especially one of the arms of a starfish or an ophiuran.
(botany) A radiating part of a flower or plant; the marginal florets of a compound flower, such as an aster or a sunflower; one of the pedicels of an umbel or other circular flower cluster; radius.
(obsolete) Sight; perception; vision; from an old theory of vision, that sight was something which proceeded from the eye to the object seen.
* Alexander Pope
- All eyes direct their rays / On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze.
(mathematics) A line extending indefinitely in one direction from a point.
(colloquial) A tiny amount.
- Unfortunately he didn't have a ray of hope .
Derived terms
* death ray
* gamma ray
* manta ray
( rel-mid)
* ray gun
* stingray
* X-ray
( rel-bottom)
Verb
( en-verb)
To emit something as if in rays.
To radiate as if in rays
- (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Etymology 2
(etyl) (m), from (etyl) (m).
Noun
( en-noun)
A marine fish with a flat body, large wing-like fins, and a whip-like tail.
Etymology 3
Shortened from array.
Verb
( en-verb)
(obsolete) To arrange.
-
(obsolete) To stain or soil; to defile.
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , VI.4:
- From his soft eyes the teares he wypt away, / And form his face the filth that did it ray .
Etymology 4
From its sound, by analogy with the letters chay, jay, gay, kay, which it resembles graphically.
Noun
( en-noun)
The name of the letter ?/?, one of two which represent the r sound in Pitman shorthand.
Related terms
* ar, in Latin and the name of the other Pitman r
Etymology 5
Noun
( -)
(obsolete) Array; order; arrangement; dress.
* Spenser
- And spoiling all her gears and goodly ray .
Etymology 6
Alternative forms.
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