RAINBOW

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does rainbow mean? 

• RAINBOW (noun)
  The noun RAINBOW has 2 senses:

1. an arc of colored light in the sky caused by refraction of the sun's rays by rain

2. an illusory hope

  Familiarity information: RAINBOW used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RAINBOW (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An arc of colored light in the sky caused by refraction of the sun's rays by rain

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("rainbow" is a kind of...):

arc; bow (something curved in shape)

Holonyms ("rainbow" is a part of...):

sky (the atmosphere and outer space as viewed from the earth)

Sense 2

Meaning:

An illusory hope

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Context example:

chasing rainbows

Hypernyms ("rainbow" is a kind of...):

hope; promise (grounds for feeling hopeful about the future)

 Context examples 

God's direct agency was to be seen in the thunder and the rainbow, the whirlwind and the lightning.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A deep gulf, she observed, had opened between Dora and me, and Love could only span it with its rainbow.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

We now stood amazed at the sight, for their blotched and warty skins were of a curious fish-like iridescence, and the sunlight struck them with an ever-varying rainbow bloom as they moved.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Her black satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

It dealt with man and his soul-gropings in their ultimate terms, plumbing the abysses of space for the testimony of remotest suns and rainbow spectrums.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Known as OVIRS (short for the OSIRIS-REx Visible and Infrared Spectrometer), the instrument will measure visible and near-infrared light reflected and emitted from the asteroid and split the light into its component wavelengths, much like a prism that splits sunlight into a rainbow.

(NASA to Map the Surface of an Asteroid, NASA)

So the only way in which he could express his rapture was to look at her, with an expression which glorified his face to such a degree that there actually seemed to be little rainbows in the drops that sparkled on his beard.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

"What would you do, Adele? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Out in the garden stood a stately snow maiden, crowned with holly, bearing a basket of fruit and flowers in one hand, a great roll of music in the other, a perfect rainbow of an Afghan round her chilly shoulders, and a Christmas carol issuing from her lips on a pink paper streamer.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He drew up lists of the most incongruous things and was unhappy until he succeeded in establishing kinship between them all—kinship between love, poetry, earthquake, fire, rattlesnakes, rainbows, precious gems, monstrosities, sunsets, the roaring of lions, illuminating gas, cannibalism, beauty, murder, lovers, fulcrums, and tobacco.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)