ray
/ɹeɪ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.69 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
3
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A beam of light or radiation.
noun
A rib-like reinforcement of bone or cartilage in a fish's fin.
noun
One of the spheromeres of a radiate, especially one of the arms of a starfish or an ophiuran.
noun
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.
noun
Sight; perception; vision; from an old theory of vision, that sight was something which proceeded from the eye to the object seen.
Obsolete
noun
A line extending indefinitely in one direction from a point.
Example Sentences
- "I saw a ray of light through the clouds."
- "Strangely light and delicate was his frame and seeming, yet with a sense of slumbering power beneath, as the delicate peak of a snow mountain seen afar in the low red rays of morning."
- "All eyes direct their rays / On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze."
- "He was one of the unthanked benefactors of his race, who was patiently teaching and serving mankind, whilst they were shrinking from his coldness, or mocking his peculiarities. He could not sing for them a sweet song, or create a “thing of beauty” which should be “a joy for ever,” or touch their hearts, or fire their spirits, or deepen their reverence or their fervour. He was not a Poet, a Priest, or a Prophet, but only a cold, clear Intelligence, raying down pure white light, which brightened everything on which it fell, but warmed nothing—a Star of at least the second, if not of the first magnitude, in the Intellectual Firmament."
- "I had no particular woman in my mind; certainly never intended to personify wisdom, philosophy, or any other abstraction; and the orb, raying colour out of whiteness, was altogether a fancy of my own."
- "Rats' eyes with ulcus serpens were successfully treated; one second of raying stopped the progress of the ulcer, which healed uninterruptedly."
Etymology
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɹeɪ/
- British English: /ɹeɪ/
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in Medicine.
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
alpha ray
anticrepuscular ray
Becquerel calorific ray
Becquerel ray
Blu-ray
calorific ray
catch some rays
cosmic ray