Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See ignis fatuus.
- n. A delusive or misleading hope.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The ignis fatuus; hence, any person or thing that deludes or misleads by dazzling, visionary, or evanescent appearances. Also will-in-the-wisp, will-with-a-wisp, and Jack o' lantern.
- n. A common fresh-water alga, Nostoc commune: so named from its sudden and seemingly mysterious appearance. See Nostoc.
Wiktionary
- n. alternative spelling of will o' the wisp.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. See ignis fatuus.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a pale light sometimes seen at night over marshy ground
- n. an illusion that misleads
Etymologies
- From the name Will (nickname for William). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“That is, the media have been chasing a will-o'-the-wisp for the better part of a year, whipping car buyers and Congress into a frenzy.”
“The audience is shivering, and that's not just down to Warpaint's eldritch, will-o'-the-wisp music.”
“Dim will-o'-the-wisp glows came from the warm globes of the street lamps overhead.”
“A torch light, erratic as a will-o'-the-wisp, was weaving towards him from the direction of the Grange.”
“I may be on the trail in this matter, or I may be following a will-o'-the-wisp, but I shall soon know which it is.”
“The other man of the hour at the time, former Speaker Newt Gingrich was a will-o'-the-wisp compared to Limbaugh and his staying power.”
“Without their steady stream of oil money to keep will-o'-the-wisp economies from sinking into the bog, they are in serious trouble.”
“People are "pursuing a will-o'-the-wisp if they think by just letting the dollar slide enough, the trade balance will turn around," says Ronald McKinnon,”
“Pauline cringes at the heartache Chick inflicted as a demanding child, obnoxious teen and brusque, oblivious adult chasing the will-o'-the-wisp of a baseball career.”
“The town has mown an access path into a portion of the undiscovered country, and the fragrance of the mown grass-turning-into-hay, along with clover and bedstraw/madder, and the wild roses, well, it's better than will-o'-the-wisp or the pied piper's flute for calling you to come on in, come on in...”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘will-o'-the-wisp’.
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Hyphen Nation
Terms with multiple hyphens, such as rent-a-crowd. Not intended to be a see-how-many-words-one-can-string-together-with-hyphens-used-adjectively sort of list.
much-talked-of, vis-à-vis, tête-à-tête, rope-a-dope, will-o'-the-wisp, dick-a-tuesday, will-in-the-wisp, jack-o'-lantern, jack-with-a-lantern, ear-to-ear, whack-a-mole, no-man's-land and 205 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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kewpid's Words
moleskine, araldite, dessicate, cellar door, grotesque, fallacy, vendetta, raindrop, panacea, ethereal, hircus, treppenwitz and 446 more...
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Benandanti
All things Light
aureole, aura, aurora borealis, aglow, lucent, lambent, radiant, bright, burn, fire, solstice, brazier and 94 more...
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Cat Kisses Favorites
leprechaunic hair, a dinky grin, strangled giggle, a waft of words, comatose fun, a grisly shooting..., jim bag clothes, to quench and fuss, shutter hole, tearful sludge, dead-eye blue, coughing curtains... and 97 more...
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simple & useful13
rookeries, bottommost, nettlesome, extravaganza, galoot, gun moll, kludge, pollyannaish, bushwhacking, revivable, flourishing, resurgence and 97 more...
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Ignis Fatuus
The Earth's Anomalous Lightforms: 'The web is littered with folklore sites made by amateur researchers that contain lists of synonyms for the Will-o'-the-wisp. In most cases, citations and sources ...
ignis fatuus, will-o'-the-wisp, billy-wi'-t'-wisp, bob-a-longs, canwll corfe, corpse-candle, elf-fire, ellylldan, fetch candles, fetch lights, foolish fire, friar rush with a... and 57 more...
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Hyphenated Actual Words
These kind of stun me whenever I see them. Language is just so cool.
chuck-will's-widow, will-o-the-wisp, saw-whet, topsy-turvy, linsey-woolsey, ne'er-do-well, gung-ho, so-so, cul-de-sac, fleur-de-lys, service-berry, major-domo and 33 more...
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Glow On
Halos, arcs, and other glowy phenomena.
gegenschein, nightglow, dayglow, airglow, afterglow, icebow, moonbow, fogbow, rainbow, sundog, parhelion, anthelion and 35 more...
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perhapsolutely's Words
polyradiculoneuro..., abulia, abubble, abscission, abaft, zareba, abatis, abigail, abiogenesis, ablate, ablaut, abo and 1705 more...
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medieval
ghosts
ancestors
unnameable, unknowable, unfathomable
the feeling of reading Joseph Conrad or H. P. Lovecraft
or walking through Kunark in EverQuest
or looking at medi...horror, gloom, melancholia, malebolgia, leviathan, dwelling, dread, cthulu, azazel, bog, skein, pilfer and 32 more...
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O'-ho
tam-o'-shanter, jack-o'-lantern, man-o'-war, will-o'-the-wisp, light-o'-love, cat-o'-nine-tails, hop-o'-my-thumb, tom o' bedlam, bess o' bedlam, john o' groats, five o'clock shadow, o'dark thirty and 25 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for will-o'-the-wisp.
epopticamarie twilight hovering bog lights Mar 31, 2009
gangerh I thought this should have been lil-o'-the-lisp. Apr 21, 2008
treeseed See corpse candle Feb 23, 2008