Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A phosphorescent light that hovers or flits over swampy ground at night, possibly caused by spontaneous combustion of gases emitted by rotting organic matter. Also called friar's lantern, jack-o'-lantern, will-o'-the-wisp, wisp.
- n. Something that misleads or deludes; an illusion.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- A meteoric light that sometimes appears in summer and autumn nights, and flits in the air a little above the surface of the earth, chiefly in marshy places, near stagnant waters, or in churchyards. It is generally supposed to be produced by the spontaneous combustion of small jets of gas (carbureted or phosphureted hydrogen) generated by the decomposition of vegetable or animal matter. It has been popularly known in England by such names as will-o'-the-wisp, from its resemblance to a lighted wisp of straw, Jack-o'-lantern, corpse-candle, kit-of-the-candle-stick, etc. Before the introduction of the general drainage of swamp-lands, the ignis fatuus was an ordinary phenomenon in the marshy districts of England. It is still regarded by the peasantry with superstitious awe, as of evil portent, or as the treacherous signal of evil spirits seeking to lure benighted travelers to destruction.
Wiktionary
- n. A will o' the wisp.
- n. figuratively A delusion, a false hope.
GNU Webster's 1913
- A phosphorescent light that appears, in the night, over marshy ground, supposed to be occasioned by the decomposition of animal or vegetable substances, or by some inflammable gas; -- popularly called also
Will-with-the-wisp , orWill-o'-the-wisp , andJack-with-a-lantern , orJack-o'-lantern . - Fig.: A misleading influence; a decoy.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an illusion that misleads
- n. a pale light sometimes seen at night over marshy ground
Etymologies
- Modern Latin, from ignis (meaning "fire") + fatuus (meaning "foolish"). Literally "foolish fire". (Wiktionary)
- Medieval Latin : Latin ignis, fire + Latin fatuus, foolish. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Let not the magic arts of that worthless Sanford lead you, like an ignis fatuus from the path of rectitude and virtue!”
The Coquette, or, The History of Eliza Wharton: A Novel Founded on Fact
“And yet they say that the ignis fatuus (as it is called), which sometimes even settles on a wall, has not much heat, perhaps as much as the flame of spirit of wine, which is mild and soft.”
“When thou rannest up Gadshill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think thou hadst been an ignis fatuus or a ball of wildfire, there's no purchase in money.”
“It appears, however, that of all flame that of spirit of wine is the softest, unless perhaps ignis fatuus be softer, and the flames or sparklings arising from the sweat of animals.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘ignis fatuus’.
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Words from Blood Meridian
visage, affray, scullery, miasma, mirth, purlieu, tacit, benighted, wickiup, corral, amble, accoutre and 210 more...
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supernatural creatures according to M...
Turned this up on etymonline.com (link). It's amazing.
Hobbit (n.)
1937, coined in the fantasy tales of J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973).
On a blank leaf I scrawled: 'In a hole...niss, nisses, thrummy-cap, fairy, whitewoman, nicknevin, sibyl, fates, sprite, gnome, cuttie, scrat and 186 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Blood Meridian: The Words
Words from Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"
argosy, ossuary, thaumaturge, devonian, ristras, chartvail, catafalque, suzerain, argonauts, unrectified, surbated, pyrolatrous and 86 more...
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harmonygritz's Cross Words
Words discovered while doing puzzles. Includes puns, e.g. taper vs. tapir.
hodad, hart, avocet, cahier, blackbird, brace, fetor, Bren, Rialto, bijou, liveried, stentor and 64 more...
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esotericisms
words that make me warm inside
kinemacolour, sardonic, entente, saturnine, ens, ensanguine, causa sui, entelechy, epicheirema, ex post facto, peccadillo, illation and 27 more...
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Miscellaneous
‽, ☤, mandelbrot, angora rabbit, psychrolutes marc..., vampyroteuthis in..., basking shark, mano de desierto, underwater sculpt..., surgical dining, gyroscope, Derinkuyu and 161 more...
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Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young ...
These words are from Samuel Richardson's novel Clarissa, Or, The History of a Young Lady, 1747-48
adumbrate, virago, varlet, rencounter, akimbo, palliate, amanuensis, amok, equipage, cully, se'ennight, resentments and 560 more...
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Latinate
lorem ipsum, citius, altius, fortius, curriculum vitae, bona fide, terra nullius, habeas corpus, quidnunc, voir dire, emeritus, quincunx and 99 more...
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Quaintnesses
For those who wish no words were ever forgotten
opprobrium, tedium, encomium, odium, ire, enmity, beguile, wile, brazen, popinjay, squit, hoity-toity and 1161 more...
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Review
Words to study and become more familiar with.
phatic, tontine, backronym, polyptoton, fissiparous, deus ex machina, orrery, prolly, mad props, snog, oubliette, copyleft and 101 more...
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azd's Words
adamantine, abatial, ablate, ablative, abrogate, accretive, acromegaly, acrostic, actinism, actinic, acuity, adduce and 968 more...
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NeoVolt's Words
schadenfreude, serendipity, idiosyncrasy, loess, caducous, vagary, schematic, steeple, licentious, tangential, verisimilitude, vernacular and 385 more...
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Collage's Words
subtle, calamity, impale, qat, painterly, piebald, surly, nihilistic, repine, slake, larder, sepulchre and 349 more...
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Amusing words
interesting words
bonce, furcate, tapioca, tillage, desalinate, garish, litmus, roadhog, azoic, haberdasher, imbroglio, polliwog and 802 more...
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gorgonglare's list
the best
zeppelin, ion, laconic, serendipity, cataract, saturnine, syzygy, cinnabar, bistro, lithium, paroxysm, scion and 694 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for ignis fatuus.

matthewsouther also called friar's lantern, jack-o'-lantern, will-o'-the-wisp Jun 14, 2009
oroboros "With wings wrought from rainbows and eyes from stars, it is but the intangible child of story, song and dream."
--Agnosticism and Other Essays by Edgar Fawcett
(q.v.,agnosticism for link) Jul 11, 2008
bilby Plural is ignis fatui, as in this marvellous shopping list of faerie beasties:
"What a happiness this must have been seventy or eighty years ago and upwards, to those chosen few who had the good luck to be born on the eve of this festival of all festivals; when the whole earth was so overrun with ghosts, boggles, bloody-bones, spirits, demons, ignis fatui, brownies, bugbears, black dogs, specters, shellycoats, scarecrows, witches, wizards, barguests, Robin-Goodfellows, hags, night-bats, scrags, breaknecks, fantasms, hobgoblins, hobhoulards, boggy-boes, dobbies, hob-thrusts, fetches, kelpies, warlocks, mock-beggars, mum-pokers, Jemmy-burties, urchins, satyrs, pans, fauns, sirens, tritons, centaurs, calcars, nymphs, imps, incubuses, spoorns, men-in-the-oak, hell-wains, fire-drakes, kit-a-can-sticks, Tom-tumblers, melch-dicks, larrs, kitty-witches, hobby-lanthorns, Dick-a-Tuesdays, Elf-fires, Gyl-burnt-tales, knockers, elves, rawheads, Meg-with-the-wads, old-shocks, ouphs, pad-foots, pixies, pictrees, giants, dwarfs, Tom-pokers, tutgots, snapdragons, sprets, spunks, conjurers, thurses, spurns, tantarrabobs, swaithes, tints, tod-lowries, Jack-in-the-Wads, mormos, changelings, redcaps, yeth-hounds, colt-pixies, Tom-thumbs, black-bugs, boggarts, scar-bugs, shag-foals, hodge-pochers, hob-thrushes, bugs, bull-beggars, bygorns, bolls, caddies, bomen, brags, wraiths, waffs, flay-boggarts, fiends, gallytrots, imps, gytrashes, patches, hob-and-lanthorns, gringes, boguests, bonelesses, Peg-powlers, pucks, fays, kidnappers, gallybeggars, hudskins, nickers, madcaps, trolls, robinets, friars' lanthorns, silkies, cauld-lads, death-hearses, goblins, hob-headlesses, bugaboos, kows, or cowes, nickies, nacks necks, waiths, miffies, buckies, ghouls, sylphs, guests, swarths, freiths, freits, gy-carlins Gyre-carling, pigmies, chittifaces, nixies, Jinny-burnt-tails, dudmen, hell-hounds, dopple-gangers, boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies, wirrikows, alholdes, mannikins, follets, korreds, lubberkins, cluricauns, kobolds, leprechauns, kors, mares, korreds, puckles korigans, sylvans, succubuses, blackmen, shadows, banshees, lian-hanshees, clabbernappers, Gabriel-hounds, mawkins, doubles, corpse lights or candles, scrats, mahounds, trows, gnomes, sprites, fates, fiends, sibyls, nicknevins, whitewomen, fairies, thrummy-caps, cutties, and nisses, and apparitions of every shape, make, form, fashion, kind and description, that there was not a village in England that had not its own peculiar ghost. Nay, every lone tenement, castle, or mansion-house, which could boast of any antiquity had its bogle, its specter, or its knocker. The churches, churchyards, and crossroads were all haunted. Every green lane had its boulder-stone on which an apparition kept watch at night. Every common had its circle of fairies belonging to it. And there was scarcely a shepherd to be met with who had not seen a spirit!"
- 'The Denham Tracts' vol. 2, Michael Aislabie Denham, 1895. Jan 4, 2008
minerva But, alas! my dear, we see that the wisest people are not to be depended upon when love, like an ignis fatuus, holds up its misleading lights before their eyes.
Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson Jan 4, 2008