aurora
/ɔːˈrɔːrə/noun
(pl. auroras 或 aurorae /-riː/)
1
- a natural electrical phenomenon characterized by the appearance of streamers of reddish or greenish light in the sky, especially near the northern or southern magnetic pole. The effect is caused by the interaction of charged particles from the sun with atoms in the upper atmosphere. In northern and southern regions it is respectively called aurora borealis or northern lights and aurora australis or southern lights.极光（一种自然的光现象, 特点是天空中出现呈红色或绿色的光, 多发生在南北磁极附近, 由来自太阳的带电粒子与地球大气层外层的原子相互作用所致, 在北极和南极地区分别称作北极光和南极光）。
- ORIGIN: borealis from Latin, 'northern', based on Greek Boreas, the god of the north wind; australis from Latin, 'southern', from Auster 'the south, the south wind'.
2
- in sing. poetic/literary the dawn〈诗/文〉晨曦。
派生词
auroral
adjective词源
late Middle English (originally in sense 2)： from Latin， 'dawn， goddess of the dawn'. Sense 1 dates from the early 18th cent.