Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A ray of sunlight.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A ray of the sun.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A beam or ray of the sun.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A narrow and intense (relative to ambient light) ray of sunlight.
  • noun Any butterfly of the genus Curetis.
  • noun Any hummingbird of the genus Aglaeactis.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a ray of sunlight

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English sunnebem, from Old English sunnebēam (translation of Late Latin columna lūcis, pillar of light) : sunne, sun; see sun + bēam, tree, building post; see beam.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From sun +‎ beam.

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Examples

  • Survey-ships and detectors were out; the scientists of the Patrol had been for months hard at work on the "sunbeam" -a device to concentrate the energy of the sun into one frightful beam.

    Children of the Lens Smith, E. E. 1954

  • She was a very grave "sunbeam" when she set out to walk to church -- and as clear!

    Say and Seal, Volume II Susan Warner 1852

  • That's all of us - everybody you know, everybody you love, everybody you ever heard of lived out their lives there, on a mote of dust in a sunbeam.

    Celebrating Carl Sagan And 'Cosmos' 2010

  • It had moved out away from me on the current and was glittering like a sunbeam on the water.

    Master of Mirrors Amanda Marrone 2011

  • Then I admitted defeat and crawled away to the bedroom, where I lay in a sunbeam and smelled the spring unfolding outside the open window.

    Ugh II ellen_datlow 2009

  • That's all of us - everybody you know, everybody you love, everybody you ever heard of lived out their lives there, on a mote of dust in a sunbeam.

    Celebrating Carl Sagan And 'Cosmos' 2010

  • T.J. gave Margaret a sunbeam smile and strutted confidently through the doors of what was soon to be his office.

    I.O.U. Elle 2011

  • And Max is lounging on a spare laptop, in a sunbeam.

    Valentines, part the first mllelaurel 2009

  • It had moved out away from me on the current and was glittering like a sunbeam on the water.

    Master of Mirrors Amanda Marrone 2011

  • That's all of us - everybody you know, everybody you love, everybody you ever heard of lived out their lives there, on a mote of dust in a sunbeam.

    Celebrating Carl Sagan And 'Cosmos' 2010

Comments

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  • Who can resist a bird named Shining Sunbeam? :-D

    September 15, 2009