Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The quality or state of being iridescent.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The condition of being iridescent; exhibition of alternating or intermingling colors like those of the rainbow, as in mother-of-pearl, where it is an effect of interference (see interference, 5); any shimmer of glittering and changeable colors.
Wiktionary
- n. The condition or state of being iridescent; exhibition of colors like those of the rainbow; a prismatic play of color.
- n. Any shimmer of glittering and changeable colors.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Exhibition of colors like those of the rainbow, especially a surface reflection which changes color with the angle at which the object is viewed; the quality or state of being iridescent; a prismatic play of color. It is due to interference of light waves reflected from the front and back surfaces of a thin layer transparent or semitransparent film.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the visual property of something having a milky brightness and a play of colors from the surface
Examples
“The colors are caused by a phenomenon called iridescence, in which light is scattered by the laminated platelets on the feathers.”
Simon & Schuster: The Field Guide to Wildlife Habitats of the Eastern United States
“Tiny glasses of crystal-clear arak that clouded into milky iridescence when you added ice.”
“Though the sizes and shapes of bubble pipes and wands have changed over the years, the bubbles themselves remained stubbornly the same—clear, save for a bit of iridescence.”
The Wall Street Journal: Crayola's Colorful Soapy Bubbles Leave Indelible Memories
“As stately and territorial as their white cousins, their plumage is more ruffled, which gives them the iridescence of charcoal.”
“Sophia Tintori, a student whose research focuses on marine invertebrates called Siphonophorae, put together the first episode, about squid iridescence, and this one too.”
CreatureCast video: multicellularity explained - Boing Boing
“He was beautiful and talked in stirring iridescence.”
“The worst may have been trying to finger out a firefly and squishing the yellow iridescence up the inside of the glass.”
What do to with wine flotsam and jetsam? [reader mail] | Dr Vino's wine blog
“Even without the sun, their blue-black color glinted to iridescence.”
“Land was indistinguishable from sea—the white subarctic vista, lit to iridescence by a midafternoon sun, was flat and frozen straight to the horizon.”
“The vines sprouted flowers, and shafts of sunlight caught the iridescence of insect wings.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘iridescence’.
-
Waves and Waveforms
wave, brainwave, soliton, traveling wave, tidal wave, transverse wave, capillary wave, cats' paws, alpha wave, light wave, microwave, acoustic wave and 257 more...
-
AngelFace's list
Words that build up, edify, educate, encourage, deepen understanding, increase knowledge, and make the world a richer, fuller, more colorful world.
disseminate, epiphany, transcend, scintillating, effervescent, radiant, iridescence, lamentations, mica, labrynthine, introspective, importune and 1 more...
-
Becoming Words
inchoateness
effervescent, albescent, concrescence, fervescent, frondescent, suffrutescent, violescent, viridescent, resipiscence, rufescent, sonorescent, tenebrescence and 129 more...
-
cloudjuice's Words
schadenfreude, sordid, promulgate, erratic, erroneous, amalgamate, sesquipedalian, incongruous, psychosis, etymology, simulacrum, serendipity and 988 more...
-
intueri's Words
inveigle, dolorous, archly, feckless, resplendent, concatenation, peripatetic, delightful, cookie, fey, ephemeral, effervescent and 347 more...
-
Nick Yeow’s Words
Recently learned words that I like.
pharmaceutical, bowdlerise, connoisseur, cognoscenti, ostracise, aforementioned, antepenultimate, concatenate, extraterrestrial, psychiatrist, firmament, gastronomical and 100 more...
-
Rilakkuma's list
The Velvetine Ruffians
gamine, waif, ruffian, villain, rake, libertine, velvetine, luminary, nom de plume, street urchin, epicurean, eventide and 256 more...
-
lux
All things light-filled and radiant.
scintillate, radiate, elucidate, emanate, illuminate, sparkling, sparkle, glitter, glittering, glisten, shine, brighten and 96 more...
-
Just 'cause I like 'em, I
irenic, inimical, ignotism, infrangible, internecine, illumine, ingot, imposter, iconoclast, indefeasible, indefatigable, impingement and 183 more...
-
Proustian
vetiver, cheval-glass, ossature, transvertebration, orris-root, ferruginous, viaticum, rep, senescence, bengal light, madeleine, lime-blossom and 109 more...
-
thricedotted's Words
schadenfreude, vanquish, calumny, obsequious, rhapsody, expostulate, promontory, bordello, quintessence, catharsis, recapitulation, myriad and 937 more...
-
palooka's Words
abysmal, iridescence, behemoth, misbegotten, fathomless, catwalk, foible, vapid, caravanserai, happenstance, addled, congeries and 29 more...
-
Keeping Tabs
My favourite words, or some of them.
ambidexterous, ethereal, nemesis, anenome, exacerbate, effervescence, iridescence, meander, almanac, turncoat, chasm, recombinant and 11 more...
-
SockFullOfPennies's Words
spaghettification, simultaneity, instantaneity, prestidigitation, recalcitrant, retronym, uncouple, decouple, ept, evanescent, prodigious, fratricide and 61 more...
-
Of Rainbows
Words relating to rainbows and iridescent phenomena.
weathergall, sundog, brede, iridescence, irised, pavonine, iridocyte, nacreosity, opalesce, opalescence, opalesque
-
Glitterati
word glow
coruscate, iridescence, iridescent, whack-a-doodle, frowzy, shazam, starburst, bedazzled, dazzle, bejewel, spangle, luster and 8 more...
--The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Revised by D.J. Enright, p 744 of the Modern Library paperback edition Sep 13, 2008
iridesce (v. intr.)
To exhibit iridescence; to shine in an iridescent manner.
1905 J. LONDON Jacket (1915) 48
Sun-flashed water where coral-growths iridesced from profounds of turquoise deeps.
iridescent (a.)
Displaying colours like those of the rainbow, or those reflected from soap-bubbles and the like; glittering or flashing with colours which change according to the position from which they are viewed.
1879 G. ALLEN Colour-Sense i. 5
We do not owe to the colour-sense the existence in nature of the rainbow, the sunset, or the other effects of iridescent light.
1873 BLACKIE Self-Cult. (1874) 84
The best fictions, without a deep moral significance beneath, are only iridescent froth.
iridian (a.)
Rainbow-like; brilliantly coloured.
1888 A. UPWARD Songs in Ziklag 146 Consistency ii,
Truth's iridian arch.
iridical (a.)
Brilliant with rainbow colours.
1862 S. LUCAS Secularia 100
The iridical window and the flaming shrine.
iridine (a.)
Rainbow-like; iridescent.
1851 S. JUDD Margaret I. xiv. (Ward & Lock) 110
The horned-pout, with its pearly iridine breast and iron-brown back.
iridize (v. trans.)
To make iridescent.
iridization (n.)
The action or process of showing prismatic colours as in the rainbow; irisation.
1884 Pop. Sci. Monthly June 288
M. Cornu lately described to the French Academy of Sciences a white rainbow...This rainbow was wholly white, without even as much iridization as is noticeable in halos, and had a fleecy appearance. Jun 28, 2007