umbriel
/ˈʌmbriəl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.23 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
Etymology
All of Uranus’s moons are named after characters created by William Shakespeare or Alexander Pope. The names of all four satellites of Uranus then known were suggested by John Herschel in 1852 at the request of William Lassell, though it is uncertain if Herschel devised the names, or if Lassell did so and then sought Herschel’s permission. Umbriel is the “dusky melancholy sprite” in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, and the name suggests the Latin umbra (“shadow”); the ending matches Ariel, name of another character.
Origin
- Source language: Latin