JACK-O'-LANTERN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Jack-o'-lantern

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/dʒæk-oʊ-lˈæntərn/ Listen

noun

Jack-with-a-lantern, Jack-o'-lantern n.

(Biol.) A large orange-colored luminescent mushroom, Clitocybe illudens, also classified as Omphalotus olearius. It is poisonous and is sometimes found on hardwood tree stumps.

Synonyms: jack-a-lantern, Clitocybe illudens.

A pale light sometimes seen at night over marshy ground; an ignis fatuus; a will-o'-the-wisp. "(Newspaper speculations) supplying so many more jack-o'-lanterns to the future historian."

Synonyms: friar's lantern, ignis fatuus, will-o'-the-wisp.

A lantern carved from a hollowed-out pumpkin, with holes cut in the rind and so shaped that when it is illuminated by a candle inside, the features of a human face, cat's face, etc. appear in a glowing yellow color. It is used mostly as a decoration at Halloween.

See images of 'Jack-o'-lantern'

Etymology of 'Jack-o'-lantern'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Jack-o'-lantern" Quotes from Famous Books

... before the wheel, and in it sat smoking cigar after cigar from the Indian D box, half-asleep, yet conscious. The moon came up into a pretty cloudless sky, and she was bright, but not bright enough to out-shine the enlightened flight of the ocean, which that night was one continuous swamp of Jack-o'-lantern phosphorescence, a wild but faint luminosity mingled with stars and flashes of brilliance, the whole trooping unanimously eastward, as if in haste with elfin momentous purpose, a boundless congregation, in the sweep ...

— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... stunt, Nora," observed David. "Let's have something more improved and up-to-date. Suppose, for instance, we use Marian's Jack-o'-lantern for the head. I'll put some little electric bulbs in the eye holes and attach them to a battery so that we can turn her eyes off and on. And we'll ride her on a broomstick ...

— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... tortured by their words. Troffater knew not where to turn his little earthen eyes, for fear of encountering accusers; and he fixed them on the moon, and whistled a snatch or two of his addicted music; then bit his lips, and blowed, and hitched around on his seat, and blushed like a jack-o'-lantern. ...

— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee

... proved his wisdom. When he returned in a very short time from that ever-to-be-famous spring, with his brimming kettle, he found a glorious fire, and three tired but cheerful fellows watching it, its reflection playing like a jack-o'-lantern ...

— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook

... without force of arms. I am aware that general disarmament is not popular among statesmen, that it has been denounced by an eminent authority as a "will-o'-the wisp", that arbitration has been styled a "Jack-o'-lantern", but this is not the first time a good and workable scheme has been branded with opprobrious names. The abolition of slavery was at one time considered to be an insane man's dream; now all people believe in it. Will the twentieth century ...

— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang