Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A visible trail of streaks of condensed water vapor or ice crystals sometimes forming in the wake of an aircraft. Also called vapor trail.
Wiktionary
- n. An artificial cloud made by the exhaust of jet aircraft or wingtip vortices that precipitate a stream of tiny ice crystals in moist, frigid upper air.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an artificial cloud created by an aircraft; caused either by condensation due to the reduction in air pressure above the wing surface or by water vapor in the engine exhaust
Etymologies
- con(densation) + trail.
Examples
“A bright dot, and then one -- you know, the term contrail doesn't really apply, because that's kind of streaking plasma, superheated ionized air.”
“When conditions are right they leave a "contrail" of vaporized lube in the air.”
“Then your "contrail" becomes some kind of Care Bears inspired James Bond-esque defensive countermeasure.”
“Chemtrails - Are humans dependant on even man made "contrail" particulate?”
WN.com - Articles related to U.S. faith in climate science hits new low
“The term "contrail" was adopted for convenience in identifying the visible powder trail of this invention.”
“Preparation of the light scatter powder 13 is of a critical importance to production of a powder "contrail" having maximum visibility for a given weight of material.”
“contrail" with sufficient visibility to aid in visual acquisition of an aircraft target vehicle and the like.”
“Many track contrail of sword, more mystery pray words blessing, that can moving on diffence magnetism zone.”
“A full moon rose, transforming a jet contrail into a comet, and the river glimmered through the trees.”
““Just supposing,” she said, her voice as dreamy and ephemeral and far away as a jet contrail in the sky.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘contrail’.
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Clouds
We owe our current names for clouds to Luke Howard. Wikipedia tells us that "Howard was not the first to attempt a classification of clouds—Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) had earlier proposed a ...
wane-cloud, stratus, cirrostratus, cirro-stratus, strato-cirrus, altostratus, salmon-cloud, cumulus, altocumulus lenti..., sonder-cloud, rain-cloud, nimbostratus and 205 more...
sonofgroucho One of my favourite contrails. Nov 25, 2007
oroboros Soft, distant thunder.
From silvery sky-speck glints,
Silent contrails drift Mar 10, 2007
oroboros "CONdensation trail". We've all seen 'em. Did you know how they were made? Condensation, when conditions (primarily altitude)are just right, around particulate matter emitted by the jet engines. They contribute significantly to cloudiness in general in the skies. When virtually all planes were grounded after the 9/11 event, scientists were able to briefly, uniquely, study just how much of a contribution contrails are to atmospheric dynamics. Jan 31, 2007