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Luminary   Listen
noun
Luminary  n.  (pl. luminaries)  
1.
Any body that gives light, especially one of the heavenly bodies. " Radiant luminary." "Where the great luminary... Dispenses light from far."
2.
One who illustrates any subject, or enlightens mankind; as, Newton was a distinguished luminary.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Luminary" Quotes from Famous Books



... countenance might be said to be sunken out of sight beneath those innumerable wrinkles, produced by a life in the open air and by the habit of watching his country in the full light of the sun from the rising of that luminary to the sinking of it. Nevertheless, to an observer enough remained of the imperishable forms of the human face which appealed to the soul, even though the eye could see no more than a lifeless head. The firm outline of the face, the shape of the brow, the solemnity of the ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... The train marched westward; for there, where the earthly remains of man also found rest, the millions of suns had disappeared, each of which was succeeded daily by a new one, born of the night. The young luminary, the priests said, did not forget those that had been extinguished, and from whom he was descended; and Anion paid them this mark of respect to warn the devout not to forget those who were passed away, and to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... outside mourners pass Home from thy dust, to empty their own glass; I—who the throng affect not, nor their state— Steal to thy grave undress'd, to meditate On our sad loss, accompanied by none, An obscure mourner that would weep alone. So, when the world's great luminary sets, Some scarce known star into the zenith gets, Twinkles and curls, a weak but willing spark, As glow-worms here do glitter in the dark. Yet, since the dimmest flame that kindles there An humble love unto the light doth bear, And true ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan

... his face, as if welcoming him from his noisome depths. An instant later, with throbbing pulses and flushed cheeks, Roy stood out in the open. Above him light clouds raced across the moon, alternately obscuring and revealing the luminary of the night. ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... at nine in the morning, Dr. Dillon, you'll find him over his letters and desk, in his breakfast parlour,' said Toole, who, apprehending that this night's work might possibly prove a hit for the disreputable and savage luminary, was treating him, though a good deal stung and confounded by the prodigious amount of the fee, with more ceremony than he did at first. 'Short accounts, you know,' said Dillon, locking the lid of his case down upon his instruments. 'But maybe, as you say, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... Vasudeva himself falling from the car of precious metals! And, O warrior I swooned away, and, O king of men, my sire seemed like unto Yayati after the loss of his merit, falling towards the earth from heaven! And like unto a luminary whose merit hath been lost saw my father falling, his head-gear foul and flowing loosely, and his hair and dress disordered. And then the bow Sharanga dropped from my hand, and, O son of Kunti I swooned away! I sat down on the side of the car. And, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... of my heart," said Hilda, addressing Edith, while she still gazed on the western luminary, "see, the sun goes down to the far deeps, where Rana and Aegir [136] watch over the worlds of the sea; but with morning he comes from the halls of the Asas—the golden gates of the East—and joy comes in his ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... scant consolation from this announcement, and quite forgot his business engagement in his mortification and ill temper. He dropped in during the day to see Mr Pottinger, to discuss his grievance with that legal luminary. But Mr Pottinger, as the reader is aware, had complications of another kind to disclose. He astonished his visitor with an account of the surprise visit of Mr Ratman a few days previously, and of that gentleman's astounding claims to the ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... The luminary, before whose splendour the night takes wing, had already changed the eighth heaven(1) from azure to the lighter blue,(2) and in the meads the flowerets were beginning to lift their heads, when Emilia, being risen, roused her fair gossips, ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... country long to realize that in that young man, who was Wendell Phillips, a new oratorical luminary had arisen. He took up the work of lecturing as a profession, treating on other subjects as well as slavery; but when slavery was the subject no charge was made for his services. Said Frederic Hudson, the noted New York ...
— The Abolitionists - Together With Personal Memories Of The Struggle For Human Rights • John F. Hume

... the ecclesiastical history of the third century might convince them that they have no reason to complain of their present privileges. The amount of material light which surrounds us does not depend on our proximity to the sun. When our planet is most remote from its great luminary, we may bask in the splendour of his effulgence; and, when it approaches nearer, we may be involved in thick darkness. So it is with the Church. The amount of our religious knowledge does not depend on our proximity ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... Cousin, the chief luminary in the sphere of pure philosophy in France in the first half of the nineteenth century, drew his inspiration from Germany. He was professedly an eclectic, but in the main his philosophy was Hegelian. He might endow God with consciousness and speak of Providence, but he regarded ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

... too absurd.' Notwithstanding the absurdity of the proposal, however, the clerk allowed himself to be gently drawn beyond the hearing of Mr. Pickwick; and after a short conversation conducted in whispers, walked softly down a little dark passage and disappeared into the legal luminary's sanctum, from whence he shortly returned on tiptoe, and informed Mr. Perker and Mr. Pickwick that the Serjeant had been prevailed upon, in violation of all his established rules and customs, to admit ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... beauty, youth, education, or remarkable mental gifts of a sort that leave permanent traces, she was the best representative of the women of her time who held their place in the world solely through their skill in organizing and conducting a salon. She was in no sense a luminary; and conscious that she could not shine by her own light, she was bent upon shining by that of others. But, in a social era so brilliant, even this implied talent of a high order. A letter to the Empress ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason

... only for the 'sensation' of gaming. Menage tells us of a gamester who declared that he had never seen any luminary above the horizon but the moon. Saint Evremond, writing to the Count de Grammont, says—'You play from morning to night, or rather from night to morning. All the rays of the gamester's existence terminate in play; it is on this centre that his very existence depends. ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... crossed the Longe, and, as the day was cloudy, our guides wandered in a forest away to the west till we came to the River Chihombo, flowing to the E.N.E. My men depended so much on the sun for guidance that, having seen nothing of the luminary all day, they thought we had wandered back to the Chiboque, and, as often happens when bewildered, they disputed as to the point where the sun should rise next morning. As soon as the rains would allow next day, we went off to the N.E. It would have been ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... farther and farther from the brink from which we had embarked; and it glided easily over the glassy sheet of water, which is never agitated by even the roughest gales, and does not receive the rays of the sun except when that luminary ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere

... before you. The moon at length bursts forth in the east; as you proceed at the foot of the trees, she seems to move before you on their tops and solemnly to accompany your steps. The wanderer seats himself on the trunk of an oak to await the return of day; he looks alternately at the nocturnal luminary, the darkness, and the river; he feels restless, agitated, and in expectation of something extraordinary; a pleasure never felt before, an unusual fear, cause his heart to throb, as if he were about to be admitted to some secret of the Divinity; he is alone in the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... our house. In a moment after a mourner rose up from a kneeling or lying posture, and, turning to the setting sun, stretched forth his arms in prayer and supplication with an intensity and earnestness as though he would detain the splendid luminary from running his course. With his body leaning forward and his arms stretched towards the sun, he presented a most striking figure of sorrow and petition. It was solemnly awful. He seemed to me to be one of the ancients come forth to teach me how ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... you. Give me your hand. How is my honest Captain Andrew? How goes it with the elegant gentle Lady A——? the lovely sighing Lady J——? and how, O how does that glorious luminary Lady B—— do? You see I retain my usual volatility. The Boswells, you know, came over from Normandy, with William the Conqueror, and some of us possess the spirit of our ancestors the French. I do for one. A pleasant spirit it is. Vive la Bagatelle, ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell

... and ignorance of these people. They not only imagine that they are the first people in the world, but they have the presumption to believe that the sun rises only for them. Several of them have repeatedly said to me, "Behold that luminary! which is unknown in thy country. During the night thou art not enlightened, as we are, by that heavenly body, which regulates our days and our fasts. His children[38] point out to us the hours of ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... very pleasing, and, if I may be allowed the expression, was a sort of good-breeding undrest. As I intended to make a pretty long journey the next day, I rose time enough to behold that glorious luminary the sun set out on his course, which, by-the-by, is one of the finest sights the eye can behold; and, as it is a thing seldom seen by people of fashion, unless it be at the theatre at Covent-garden, I could not help laying some stress upon it here. The kitchen in this ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... shadow of a doubt whom they mean, accept and consider the prayer I read you now from the same Vedas: 'O Thou who givest sustenance to the world, Thou sole mover of all, Thou who restrainest sinners, who pervadest yon great luminary which appearest as the Son of the Creator; hide thy struggling beams and expand thy spiritual brightness that I may view thy most auspicious, most glorious, real form. OM, remember me, divine Spirit! OM, remember my deeds! Let my soul return to the immortal Spirit ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace

... press agent's masterpiece. She was able further to see that Paula would regard the moves of this game with a large-minded tolerance which would be incomprehensible to John. After all, that was the way to take it. If you were a real luminary, not just a blank white surface, all the mud that Mr. Maxfield Ware could splash wouldn't matter. You burnt it off. None of those ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster

... darkness of night. It was not, however, until long after this time that the rays of the setting sun ceased to illumine the balloon, and this fact, although, of course, expected, did not fail to give me great pleasure. In the morning I should behold the rising [v]luminary many hours before the citizens of Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the eastward, and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height ascended, I should enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and longer period. I now resolved to ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various

... race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joly, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... her, like me A sister, with like violence were torn The saintly folds, that shaded her fair brows. E'en when she to the world again was brought In spite of her own will and better wont, Yet not for that the bosom's inward veil Did she renounce. This is the luminary Of mighty Constance, who from that loud blast, Which blew the second over Suabia's realm, That power produc'd, which was the ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... we see great shafts of light arising and spreading fan-shaped from behind a cloud which lies along the western horizon, we have a strong presumption that they all spring from one great luminary toward which they converge, although that luminary is hidden from our view. So tracing the convergence of heathen faiths with respect to one original monotheism, back to the point where the prehistoric obscurity begins, we may on the same principle say that all the evidence in ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... and, dark as that was, from the expression which animated it, it was perfectly beautiful. His voice rose. He was telling his people of the glories of heaven; of Him who placed that warmth-giving luminary there for their benefit, and who so loved the world that He sent his only Son, that all who trust in him might be saved from destruction. ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... laid in with its vivid yellow-green as an intentional note of a tone scheme. The somberest shadows, the most neutral twilights, the most austere recesses are lighted by it as though so many freakish sunbeams had severed relations with the parent luminary to rest quietly in the coolnesses of ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... fountain columns in the oval sunken garden are the Rising and the Setting Sun, by Adolph A. Weinmann. (p. 69.) In the east the Sun, in the strength of morning, the masculine spirit of "going forth," has spread his wings for flight; in the west, the luminary, now essentially feminine, as the brooding spirit of evening, is just alighting. The sculptural adornment of the shafts is detailed ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... dine with one of the Vice-Chancellors on the day named. He had never before dined at the house of this great law luminary, whose acquaintance he had made through Mr. Low, and he had thought a great deal of the occasion. Mrs. Freemantle had sent him the invitation nearly a fortnight ago, and he understood there was to be an elaborate dinner party. He did not know it for ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... to me, sat Aaron, whilst the surgeon bound up a cut in his neck. He looked solemnly at me for a moment, and then pointing towards the brilliant luminary, which, as it sank beneath the waves, lit up the western sky with a ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur

... flame; devouring element; adiathermancy[obs3]; recalescence[Phys]. summer, dog days; canicular days[obs3]; baking &c. 384 heat, white heat, tropical heat, Afric heat[obs3], Bengal heat[obs3], summer heat, blood heat; sirocco, simoom; broiling sun; insolation; warming &c. 384. sun &c. (luminary) 423. [Science of heat] pyrology[obs3]; thermology[obs3], thermotics[obs3], thermodynamics; thermometer &c. 389. [thermal units] calorie, gram-calorie, small calorie; kilocalorie, kilogram calorie, large calorie; British ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... the contents to fall in a pattering stream, represented the noise of hail and rain. The moon was formed by a circular aperture cut in a tin box containing a powerful Argand lamp, which was placed at the back of the scene, and brought near or carried far from the canvas as the luminary was supposed to be shining brightly or to be veiled by clouds. These contrivances, from a modern point of view, may strike the reader as constituting quite the A B C of theatrical illusion. But then it must be remembered that they were, for the most part, distinctly the inventions of De Loutherbourg, ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... consequence. thing of naught, man of straw, John Doe and Richard Roe, faggot voter; nominis umbra [Lat.], nonentity; flash in the pan, vox et praeterea nihil [Lat.]. shadow; phantom &c (fallacy of vision) 443; dream &c (imagination) 515; ignis fatuus &c (luminary) 423 [Lat.]; such stuff as dreams are made of [Tempest]; air, thin air, vapor; bubble &c 353; baseless fabric of a vision [Tempest]; mockery. hollowness, blank; void &c (absence) 187. inanity, fool's paradise. V. vanish, evaporate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... her, and the vision of the critical world faded to a blank. Whatever she was, he was her prime luminary, so he determined to think that he cast light upon a precious, an ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... what was now a good and had once been a miraculous memory. His company had so long been his pride, his reliance, his solace, and almost his gospel that he had grown to think of it as a sort of fixed star, whose light perhaps might be exceeded by some larger and more pretentious luminary, but which would nevertheless shine steadily on, beyond the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble

... what university in Europe: the lot of the young Jewish strangers is no better.... The Russians are proud of the fame of a Lomonossoff, the son of a poor moujik who became a luminary in the world of science. How numerous are the ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz

... luminary," says Mr. Fenety, "set in semi-darkness on the day that Mr. Wilmot left the forum for the bench. He was the light of the House for sixteen years, the centre from whence radiated most of the sparkling ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay

... spectacles. I know what it will be. I foresee how all that sessional experience will come out. I reconcile myself to it, in spite of the selfish consideration of wanting him elsewhere; and while I have a heavy sense of a light being snuffed out in the audience, perceive a new luminary shining on ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 1 (of 3), 1833-1856 • Charles Dickens

... always the way when Ireland was concerned; her aid was invoked in the battle, but when the division of the spoil came, she was forgotten. And in the present instance insult had been added to injury. The Scotch bill had been brought forward by a Scotch legal luminary. Was there no Irish gentleman to whom ministers could entrust the Irish reform bill? Ministers wished to put an end to agitation in Ireland. But how did they set about it? By perpetrating an act of injustice, which would perpetuate ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... the sun sinks to rest in discouragement at three or four o'clock in the afternoon, and rises with a faint heart and a pale face at ten or eleven in the forenoon; when even high noon is unworthy of the name—for the dull luminary, having barely got above the fence at twelve o'clock, backs out of it and sinks again into the blackness of darkness one is destined to endure for at least two thirds of the four and twenty! Since the moon is no more obliging to the Alaskans than the ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... and toasted the potent luminary in hot coffee; for Phoebe's wagon had a stove and chimney; and then they yoked their miscellaneous cattle again, and breasted the hill. With many a jump, and bump, and jolt, and scream from inside, they reached the summit, and looked down on a vast slope, flowering ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... made the two luminaries, the great ones; the luminary, the great one, to rule over the day, and the luminary, the small one, to rule over the ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland

... him to the loop-hole in the other of his hated obstructions, the walls of Berwick—where that evening he expected to meet his beloved Isabella, and commune with her in the eloquent language of their mutual passion. The bright luminary burst in the midst of his reveries from behind an autumn cloud, and flashed a long silver beam upon the rolling waters. He ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... rain," said the mountaineer, commenting upon the aspect of the luminary, which he, too, had noticed as they passed. "I ain't s'prised none ef we hev fallin' weather agin 'fore day, an' the man—by name Morgan Holden—that hev charge o' the hotel property can't git back fur a week ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... which help is claimed against the Anunnaki shows how much their power was dreaded. The Chaldean felt them everywhere about him, and could not move without incurring the danger of coming into contact with them. He did not fear them so much during the day, as the presence of the luminary deities in the heavens reassured him; but the night belonged to them, and he was open to their attacks. If he lingered in the country at dusk, they were there, under the hedges, behind walls and trunks of trees, ready to rush out upon him at every turn. If he ventured after sundown into ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... shadows of the trees were getting the grotesque and exaggerated forms which precede the last rays of the luminary, and while the people were still listening to their pastor, a solitary individual was placed on a giddy eyrie, whence he might note the movements of those who dwelt in the hamlet, without being the subject of observation himself. A short spur of the mountain projected into ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... youth who had freely partaken of the cup which cheers and likewise inebriates, following a moth-like impulse very natural under the circumstances, dashed his fist at the light and quenched the meek luminary,—breaking through the plate-glass, of course, to reach it. Now I don't want to go into minutiae at table, you know, but a naked hand can no more go through a pane of thick glass without leaving some of its cuticle, to say the least, behind it, than a butterfly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various

... Raynor, "it is also a part of my instructions that the Honorable Miss Seabring shall be discouraged from any further adventures in that direction; she's far too talented; there's danger of her becoming a great luminary. In other words, she is not to grace the boards again ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson

... da Vinci. Michael Angelo, the other great luminary of art, was twenty-two years younger, but the more severe and reflective cast of his mind rendered their difference of age far less in effect than in reality. It is usual to compare Michael Angelo with Raphael, but he is more aptly compared with Leonardo da Vinci. All the great artists ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... flocks, eat and drink, and do those very things which they do in this life. At new moon, or when the moon is full, they begin any new enterprise; they call the moon the great emperor, and they worship that luminary on their knees. All who dwell in their houses must undergo purification by fire, which is performed in this manner. Having kindled two fires at a convenient distance, they fix two spears in the earth, one near each fire, stretching a cord between the tops ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr

... obstructed his guests' view of the moonrise. At the end of the vista thus obtained the upper rim of the moon now appeared, as in a frame. And, watching in silence, Mr. Blagdon's guests saw the amazing luminary emerge, as it were, from the earth like a bright and blameless soul from the grave, and sail clear, presently, and upward into untroubled space; a glory, serene, ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... know all that he knew, or, at least, all that he kept in his mind, and that thereafter everything would be endless repetition to the end of life. He dressed very much the same every day; his habits were very uniform and methodical. In the world's estimation he was, indeed, a bright luminary, and he certainly resembled the heavenly bodies in the following respects. Laura was learning that she could calculate his orbit to a nicety, and know beforehand what he would do and say in given conditions. When she came to know him better she might be able ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... else present. When I awoke the sun was shining through the branches of the trees. The crocodiles had disappeared, the wind was light, the sky blue, and the smooth water shone in the beams of the rising luminary of day. Voices reached my ears. A faint hope rose in my heart that they might proceed from Leo and Mango. I quickly descended the tree, and made my way to the edge of the island on the side whence they appeared to come. There I saw, at some distance, a ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... a hole to be made on the highest part of a Wall of 95. feet in a Church at Bononia, through which the beams of the Sun falling on the Floor, mark as exactly as is possible, the height of that Luminary. ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... fellows to hold doors open, you know—not old reprobates like you," he added in an undertone, making a grimace for my especial benefit at the retreating figure of the aforesaid irreverently apostrophised legal luminary. ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... in ignorance of its true distance; when its true distance is known, the error is removed, but not the imagination; or, in other words, the idea of the sun, which only explains tho nature of that luminary, in so far as the body is affected thereby: wherefore, though we know the real distance, we shall still nevertheless imagine the sun to be near us. For, as we said in III:xxxv.note, we do not imagine the ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... with me, saying: Come hither; I will show thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb. (10)And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, (11)having the glory of God; her luminary like to a most precious stone, as it were to a jasper stone, clear as crystal; (12)having a wall great and high; having twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various

... seen Officer Rellihan at the door of the hall. As a satellite, Rellihan was constant in his attendance on his controlling luminary in public places, even though the luminary issued no special orders to that effect; Morrison's intended visit to the hall ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day

... stones, wherewith I saw the sixth luminary ingemmed, imposed silence on their angelic bells, I seemed to hear the murmur of a stream which falls pellucid down from rock to rock, showing the abundance of its mountain source. And as the sound takes its form at the cithern's neck, and in like manner at the vent of the bagpipe the air which ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri

... directing his face to the east, then walks towards the west by the way of the south, saying, at the same time, "I follow the course of the sun," which he thus explains: "As the sun in his course moves round the world by the way of the south, so do I follow that luminary, to obtain the benefit arising from a journey round the earth by the way of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey

... which part us from the nearer fixed stars. At this stage of our knowledge men came to the noble suggestion that each of the fixed stars was itself a sun, each of the myriad probably attended by planetary bodies such as exist about our own luminary. ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler

... this, desirous of benefiting the monarch who was ever observant of vows, addressed him and gave him every assurance. The illustrious Rishi, in the very sight of that monarch, ascended upward to interview Surya, himself possessed of the splendour of that luminary. The Brahmana then approached with joined hands the god of a thousand rays and introduced himself cheerfully unto him, saying, 'I am Vasishtha.' Then Vivaswat of great energy said unto that best of Rishis, 'Welcome ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... That legal luminary craned his head forward as far as it would go without necessitating any additional movement of his body, caught Yancey's eye as he leaned out of the window, and held up the ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith

... Dubreuil, alone, has made six thousand pounds of wax. Others have obtained as handsome results, in proportion to their forces; some went to the seashore, where the wax tree grows wild, in order to use it in its natural state. It is the only luminary used here by the inhabitants, and it is exported to other parts of America and to France. We stand in need of tillers of the ground, and of negroes. The colony prospers rapidly from its own impulse, and requires only gentle stimulation. In the ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... the captain and his companions proceeded at once towards the body. It was now sunrise, and a rich light was illuminating the hill-tops, though the direct rays of the luminary had not yet descended to the valley. There lay the Indian, precisely as he had fallen, no warrior having interposed to save him from the scalping- knife. His head had reached the earth first, and the legs and body were tumbled on it, in a manner to render the form a confused ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper

... Sin, or Hurki, the moon-deity. It is in condescension to Greek notions that Berosus inverts the true Chaldaean order, and places the sun before the moon in his enumeration of the heavenly bodies. Chaldaean mythology gives a very decided preference to the lesser luminary, perhaps because the nights are more pleasant than the days in hot countries. With respect to the names of the god, we may observe that Sin, the Assyrian or Semitic term, is a word of quite uncertain ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... brilliantly reflected in the softly rippling, slowly moving undulations that came creeping up after us, heaving us gently up on their ample breasts and then sweeping on ahead of us straight toward the sinking luminary. The wind had just strength enough in it to keep the sheet of our single lug from sagging into the water, and the gig was sliding smoothly along, with the small sound of lapping, gurgling water under her, at the rate of about three knots in the hour, leaving ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... 2: The addition of light to light can be understood through the light being intensified in the air on account of there being several luminaries giving light: but this distinction does not apply to the case in point, since there is but one luminary shedding forth ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... anon make it probable. But if on the other side it be said, that the Whiteness of Froth is an Emphatical Colour, then it must no longer be said, that Fantastical Colours require a certain Position of the Luminary and the Eye, and must be Vary'd or Destroy'd by the Change thereof, since Froth appears White, whether the Sun be Rising or Setting, or in the Meridian, or any where between it and the Horizon, and from what (Neighbouring) place soever the Beholders Eye looks upon ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... should the motion of the earth be suddenly checked, it would incontinently fall into the sun, through the centripetal force of gravitation: a most ruinous event to this planet, and one which would also obscure, though it most probably would not extinguish, the solar luminary. An unlucky stripling, one of those vagrant geniuses who seem sent into the world merely to annoy worthy men of the puddinghead order, desirous of ascertaining the correctness of the experiment, suddenly arrested the arm of the professor just at the moment that the ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... be dreadful, which overspreads the mind, when HOPE, that bright luminary of the soul, which enlightens and cheers it, and excites and calls forth into action all its best ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford

... the waters come forth from their oozy beds and play and flounce in the beams of the moon. Round the luminary of the night the stars lead up the mystic dance, and compose the music of the spheres. The deities of the woods and the deities of the rivers come out from their secret haunts, and keep their pastimes unapprehensive of human intrusion. The elves and ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin

... bear a manifest relation to the religion in use among the Amonians, and to the Deity which they adored. This deity was the Sun: and most of the antient names will be found to be an assemblage of titles, bestowed upon that luminary. Hence there will appear a manifest correspondence between them, which circumstance is quite foreign to the system of Bochart. His etymologies are destitute of this collateral evidence; and have not the least analogy ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... whole, William Law's mysticism had a most elevating effect on his theology, and has done much toward raising him to the very foremost rank of eighteenth-century divines. It broadened and deepened his views, so that from being only a luminary of the estimable but somewhat narrow section of the Nonjurors, he became a writer to whom some of the most distinguished leaders of modern religious thought have thankfully acknowledged their obligations. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... the prize? Not a bit of it! He leisurely delivers fourteen lines of blank verse about the "shade of melancholy boughs," "the creeping hours of time," and "blushing, hides his sword!" In my neighbourhood happened to be one of the greatest advocates of our generation, and I heard this legal luminary whisper, "while that fellow is talking, the old servant will die of starvation," and the legal luminary was entirely and absolutely right. Adam would have died of starvation while his garrulous master was posturing. A country wench called Audrey was admirably impersonated by Miss ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various

... any sight to detairmine, at this distance, and that before the sun is risen; but, by having a glass ready, we shall soon know. Five minutes will bring us the Great Luminary, as our ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the Christian observer. For we are anxious that the world should be instructed at all rates, and that they should be pleased where they innocently may. We are, therefore, by no means among those spectators who view the occasional ascent of a poetic luminary upon the horizon of literature, as a meteoric flash which has no relation to ourselves; but we feel instantly an eager desire to find its altitude, to take its bearings, to trace its course, and to calculate its influence upon surrounding bodies. When especially it is no more an "oaten reed" ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney

... west, and the evening star arose to cheer the world with her presence, while the greater luminary retired. Slowly the day retreated and dusky night came on. One by one the stars shone out, faintly at first, as if too modest to do more than glimmer, but stronger and brighter, and more numerous by degrees, until the whole sky became like a ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... the Descubrimiento de las Islas de Salomon says, p. 41: "On the 17th October there was a total eclipse of the moon: this luminary, on rising above the horizon, was already totally eclipsed. Mendana, by his will, which he signed with difficulty, named as lady governor of the fleet his wife Dona Isabella de Barreto." And in a note, he [i.e., Pingre] says that he calculated this eclipse ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga

... Montreal, softly, "we reverse the old Medusan fable the poets tell us of, and look and muse ourselves out of stone. A little while, and it was the sunlight that gilded the wave—it now shines as brightly and glides as gaily beneath the stars; even so rolls the stream of time: one luminary succeeds the other equally welcomed—equally illumining—equally evanescent!—You see, the poetry of Provence still lives beneath ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... this was symbolized by the Menorah. Whether originally intended or not, it was the emblem of Israel's mission of light. It indicated the task of the Jew, when scattered over the wide globe, to be a light to the nations, the religious luminary to the world. And if we be permitted to give a special meaning to the seven arms of light of the Golden Candlestick, we might find therein a suggestion of the lights of truth, justice and purity, or holiness, ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various

... throne to receive the homage of the earth. The hour of repose, as night is to the fortunate and the happy, was to him the hour of torture; and he daily lingered about the sea-shore, anxiously watching the setting sun, and trembling more and more as the glorious luminary approached the termination of his career and disappeared behind the purple waves. As soon as darkness descended upon the earth, Lucifer, if absent before, invariably alighted with it, and stood beside his victim, who clapping his hands upon his eyes, would fly with a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various

... in order that their dying squeals may move the mango trees to bear fruit: at the end of the ceremonies pieces of young green mangoes are solemnly placed in the mouths of the fasting men and are by them spurted out towards the setting sun in order that the luminary may carry the fragments to every part of the country; and finally when after a longer or shorter interval the tree is wholly consumed, its place is supplied by another. All these circumstances are explained simply and naturally ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... committing his experiences to paper. We doubt, however, if his literary efforts are likely to secure him a fraction of the notoriety which the Tientsin Massacre has conferred upon his son. He never saw the moon shining upon the water, but away he went and wrote an ode to the celestial luminary, always introducing a few pathetic lines on the hardships of travel and the miseries of exile. One chapter is devoted to the description of a curious rock called the Loom Rock. It is situated in the Luhsi district of the Chang-chou prefecture ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... the "guv'nor" and his partner could not be better indicated than by the name FitzGerald gives himself at the close, just before he once more signs his name in full. Well, perhaps the legal luminary of Lowestoft would justify his inquiry if Edward FitzGerald was the man who made a lot of money out of salt by saying, "Well, ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth

... an institution established by the Missionaries for the instruction of the people, and was desirous to learn what progress the Tahaitians had made in the rudiments of science. Being informed that the lessons commenced at sunrise, the first rays of that luminary found me one morning at the school-house, as I conceived the simple structure before me to be. Its walls were formed of bamboo canes, erected singly, at sufficient distances to admit the refreshing breeze from all sides, and supporting a good roof. The interior was one ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue

... sally from our respective villas, each equipped with a tin bull's-eye lantern. The thing was so well known that it had worn a rut in the commerce of Great Britain; and the grocers, about the due time, began to garnish their windows with our particular brand of luminary. We wore them buckled to the waist upon a cricket belt, and over them, such was the rigor of the game, a buttoned top-coat. They smelled noisomely of blistered tin; they never burned aright, though they would always burn ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... looks upon us through the optician's lens for a few seconds, and fixes an image that will outlive its original. It questions the light of the sun, and detects the vaporized metals floating around the great luminary,—iron, sodium, lithium, and the rest,—as if the chemist of our remote planet could fill his bell-glasses from its fiery atmosphere. It lends the power which flashes our messages in thrills that leave the lazy chariot of day behind them. It ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... been in old days the scene of many political incidents. The latest was one at which I myself was present. The heroine of it was Miss Meresia Nevill, Lady Dorothy's daughter, who afterward achieved renown as a luminary of the Primrose League. She was then in her novitiate only, and the duke one morning whispered to her that he would give her a lesson in oratory. I was asked to be present at it, but otherwise it was to be strictly secret. Accordingly after breakfast she, I, and the duke met by appointment ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... greatest Obscuration they assign to have been 7. dig. 50. m. but they adde, that it seem'd to have been greater by 3 minuts; which M. Payen imputes to a particular motion of libration of the Suns Globe, which entertain'd that Luminary in the same Phasis for the space of 8. min. and some seconds, as if it had been stopped in the midst of its Course; rather than to a tremulous Motion of the Atmosphere, as ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various

... such disorders have always been the bad side of great wars, the inglorious part of glory; that the renown of conquerors casts its shadow like every thing else in this world! Does there exist a creature ever so diminutive, on every side of which the sun, great as is that luminary, can shine at once? It is therefore a law of nature, that ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur

... They reviled him with bitter expressions, with words even more bitter than the gall and vinegar which they gave him to drink. Not one of them all that witnessed his pains, turned the head aside even in the last pang. Yes, there was one; that glorious luminary, (pointing to the sun,) veiled his bright face and sailed on in tenfold night!' This is eloquence! Would that we could have seen the beaming features, the 'melting eye, turned toward heaven,' which indelibly impressed these words upon the heart of every hearer! . . . MANY of ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... the Clothes-Volume itself was too like a Chaos, we have now instead of the solar Luminary that should still it, the airy Limbo which by intermixture will farther volatilize and discompose it! As we shall perhaps see it our duty ultimately to deposit these Six Paper-Bags in the British Museum, farther description, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... of the mind, that come forth like the coruscations of lightning. If you could fix that flash, it would seem as if it would give new brightness to the sons of men, and almost extinguish the luminary of day. But, ere you can say it is here, it is gone. It appears to reveal to us the secrets of the world unknown; but the clouds congregate again, and shut in upon us, before we had time to apprehend its ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... kindled their hearth;" all household fires having previously been extinguished. Poor countries and districts, where the arts were in a backward condition, instead of having temples like the Peruvians, dedicated mountains and stone circles to the great luminary. It is the all but universal opinion that in this country, centuries before the Christian era, the religion of the people was Druidism; but this is merely the name of a system, and is equivalent to our saying that the present religion of our country is Presbyterianism, a statement ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier

... country was as it were bathed in twilight. "What can this be?" soliloquized the captain. "It cannot be the sun, for the sun set in the east only an hour and a half ago. Would that those clouds would disclose what enormous luminary lies behind them! What a fool I was not to have learnt more astronomy! Perhaps, after all, I am racking my brain over something that is quite in the ordinary course ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne

... night on the Caribbean Sea in fine weather is very enjoyable, provided a person does not go to sleep with his eyes gazing at the pale luminary, for if he escapes being moon-stricken he will certainly get a stiff neck or suffer in some other way. The youngsters enjoyed themselves to their hearts' content, and when tired of skylarking with Spider, piped to supper, after which those not on watch turned in. What were the rats, cockroaches, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston

... Mr Barton, what figure do you call next?' The next person he pointed out, was the favourite yearl; who stood solitary by one of the windows — 'Behold yon northern star (said he) shorn of his beams' — 'What! the Caledonian luminary, that lately blazed so bright in our hemisphere! methinks, at present, it glimmers through a fog; like Saturn without his ring, bleak, and dim, and distant — Ha, there's the other great phenomenon, the grand pensionary, that weathercock of patriotism ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... related. The principal object of their publication is not so much to expose tine atrocities of Gallic ruffians, as to awaken the sympathies and call forth the humanity of the British nation. Like that glorious luminary, whose genial rays vivify and invigorate all nature, Britain is looked up to by the whole civilized world for support against injustice, and for solace in distress. To her liberality the really unfortunate have never yet appealed ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... discarded by another as an error; and there is not a paradox or an absurdity that has not found some supporters, who maintained it as a truth. Doubt and error, in abstract and metaphysical questions, are natural and inherent in mankind, so long as reason is their only luminary in the research. ...
— A Guide for the Religious Instruction of Jewish Youth • Isaac Samuele Reggio

... machines. Indeed, spiders occasionally betray the magnetic observer into very odd behavior At times he may be seen bowing in the sunshine, like a Persian fire-worshiper; now stooping in this direction, now dodging in that, but always gazing through the sun's rays up toward that luminary. He seems demented, staring at nothing. At last he lifts his hand; he snatches apparently at vacancy to pull nothing down In truth his eye had at last caught the gleam of light reflected from an almost invisible spider line running from the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... "Nasty wind springing up," he added happily. "Blowing straight for the other buildings, too!" He put a little whistle to his lips and its squeaky notes brought two satellites of the main luminary. "Hustle out those chemicals and get 'em to work on the blaze. Rout out all the buckets you can find, and send for more. Call on that crowd out there for volunteers and get a chain started from the stream to these other buildings. Douse 'em—douse ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... moonbeams, in consequence of the luminary rising higher and higher in the heavens, came to touch this figure that lay extended on the rising ground, a perceptible movement took place in it. The limbs appeared to tremble, and although it did not rise up, the whole body gave ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... thumbs it is by no means clear how the word came to be used for twelfths of the disc of the Sun or Moon instead of tenths. However, such was the case; and when a 16th-century astronomer spoke of an eclipse of six digits, he meant that one-half of the luminary in question, be it Sun or Moon, was covered. The earliest use of the word "Digit" in this connection was to refer to the twelfth part of the visible surface of the Sun or Moon; but before the word went out of use, it came ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers

... chronicle fresh facts would go to the orrery to learn them. He would, for instance, turn his spectroscope on the sun, and not on the great ball which represents it in the mechanism, if he wanted to determine the constituents of that great luminary. And let us remember that we shall never get at any fresh religious truth by means of ritual; the proper destination of all orreries, religious or otherwise, is the museum. But meanwhile the heavens still go round, which are the work of Thy fingers; ...
— Memoranda Sacra • J. Rendel Harris

... the course of human events you are next invited to give a Fourth-of-July Oration, grasp at the opportunity, and take for your subject "Health." Tell your audience, when you rise to the accustomed flowers of rhetoric as the day wears on, that Health is the central luminary, of which all the stars that spangle the proud flag of our common country are but satellites; and close with a hint to the plumed emblem of our nation, (pointing to the stuffed one which will probably be exhibited on the platform,) that she should not henceforward confine her energies ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various



Words linked to "Luminary" :   famous person, leading light, guiding light, notable



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