Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A dense, white, fluffy, flat-based cloud with a multiple rounded top and a well-defined outline, usually formed by the ascent of thermally unstable air masses.
- n. A pile, mound, or heap.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The kind of cloud which appears in the form of rounded heaps or hills, snowy-white at top with a darker horizontal base, characteristic of mild, calm weather, especially in summer; the summer-day cloud. See cut under cloud, 1.
- n. In anatomy, a heap of cells surrounding a ripe ovum in the Graafian follicle, and constituting the discus proligerus.
Wiktionary
- n. A large white puffy cloud that develops through convection. On a hot, humid day, they can form towers and even become cumulonimbus clouds.
- n. A mound or heap.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Meteor.) One of the four principal forms of clouds. Seecloud.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a collection of objects laid on top of each other
- n. a globular cloud
Etymologies
- Latin, heap; see keuə- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word cumulus has a root similar to accumulate and means “piled up.””
“The first stage of air mass thunderstorm development is called the cumulus stage (Figure 3).”
“This works to loosen a gel-like coating and sticky layer of cells known as the cumulus corona.”
“Go out and explain me one of those great wads of wool called cumulus or cumulonimbus.”
“The ships are given the names of clouds, such as "cumulus" and "mares tails" which the protagonist of the story, Master Tem, has an ability to predict their patterns and severity in order to warn the townspeople of possible floods and other storms brought on by them.”
Fiction Review: Jason Sanford's "The Ships Like Clouds Risen by Their Rain"
“Jonker said it was unclear, for example, whether there would be more or fewer low clouds, such as cumulus clouds, in warmer conditions, which would affect the rate of global warming because of their role in reflecting sunlight away from the earth.”
“The researchers focused their lab studies on the lower 'fair-weather' clouds such as cumulus, which reflect sunlight away from the earth and therefore have a cooling effect.”
“When lower and in heavy roundish masses it's called alto-cumulus, which is the fifth on the list, and when it is lower still and looks like a lot of great blue-gray footballs wedged closely together it is known as strato-cumulus. ”
“cumulus" cloud; and in a few seconds afterwards, huge fragments of the wreck showered down, far and wide, upon the river and the adjacent shore.”
“A young, crisp cumulus can develop a "pileus"—a delicate, evanescent cloud-cap, which Mr. Pretor- Pinney disconcertingly likens to Donald Trump's comb-over.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cumulus’.
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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...
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Heaps
heap, heaps, aggerose, aggest, cumulus, accumulate, heap of trouble, thanks heaps, agget, agglomeration, The Heap, paradox of the heap
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♥
ambrosia, inamorata, gossamer, lily-white, hummingbird, roucoulement, poppy, daisy, calypso, lunula, lamb, dove and 1526 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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elvesoncrack's Words
lachrymose, blustering, fjord, chihuahua, chiffon, catalytic, stile, gefilte, prosh, thwart, ralph, ickle and 379 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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Reading Reading
Words from the works of Peter Reading - at least one from each (except the Schwitters-esque erosions, cut-ups etc).
overbright, pimpled, muskiness, effuse, stoup, maul, unlevel, viscid, perfidious, glibly, aloes, drouth and 449 more...
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hifi_del_norte's Words
vegetable, spatula, bang, fluctuate, carnage, simple, audio, hi-fi, empanada, bonnie, gazpacho, memoirs and 108 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 887 more...
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words of growth
to make bigger
cumulus, burgeon, agglomerate, augment, distended, protuberant, zenith
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Jacqueline's Words
glittery, horny, amazing, wanderlust, forlorn, lustily, nonchalant, cool, passive, submissive, roundabout, carousel and 558 more...
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Monovocalics
Words that have only one of the vowels. On this list I include only words with at least three vowels. When I first started the list, if a word had several forms, I generally listed only the one wit...
syzygy, mirific, cumulus, homolog, monocot, bedewed, jezebel, referee, bikini, minikin, locomotor, terebenthene and 2359 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, C
cryptoxanthin, convent, calcar, chuckle, campanile, covet, complexion, campestral, chirography, counterscarp, caliginous, catabolism and 722 more...
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What's next here?
thunderhead, thundercloud, cumulus, cumulonimbus, fibrous, hazy, glaciated, cirrus, nimbus, meteorology, fahrenheit, thermoscope and 285 more...
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A Heap or Pile
A noun meaning a heap or pile
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cumulus.
yarb Citation on pus. Jun 22, 2008