[ad. L. aureola; see prec. Cf. OF. aureole adj. ‘golden,’ mod.F. auréole sb.]
1. = AUREOLA 1.
c. 1220. Hali Meid., 23. Þe meidenes habben upo þat [i.e., the champion’s crown] a gerlaunde(sche) schinende schenre þen þe sunne, Auriole ihaten o latines ledene.
1413. Lydg., Pylgr. Sowle, V. iii. (1483), 93. Seynt Powle claymed by the deth that he suffred the Aureole of martirs; by gods word that he preched and taught besily he must … were also the aureole of prechours.
c. 1440. Hylton, Scala Perf. (W. de W., 1494), lxi. Thyse thre werkes … shull haue specyall mede whyche they callen aureole.
1502. Ord. Crysten Men (W. de W., 1506), V. vii. 422. Glorye accedentall excellent and synguler, the whiche glorye is named and called aureole, the whiche is as moche to say as a lytell crowne.
1884. Addis & Arnold, Cath. Dict., Aureole … is defined as a certain accidental reward added to the essential bliss of heaven, because of the excellent victory which the person who receives it has attained during his warfare upon earth.
2. Art. Properly: The gold disc surrounding the head (or ? the whole figure) in early pictures, and denoting the glory of the personage represented; hence, applied by some to a. The radiant circle of light depicted around the head; by others to b. The oblong glory, or vesica, with which divine figures are surrounded.
Didron (Iconographie Chrétienne, p. 109) by a strange blunder takes aureola for a diminutive of aura ‘emanation, exhalation,’ and defines it as a mantle of light emanating from and enveloping the body, as distinct from the nimbus, which he confines to the head. This definition, which reverses the historical use both of aureola and nimbus, is not accepted in France (see Littré), but has been copied by Fairholt, and various English Dictionaries.
a. 1848. Mrs. Jameson, Sacr. & Leg. Art (1850), 12. The glory round the head is properly the nimbus or aureole.
1860. O. Meredith, Lucile, II. VI. § 2. In the light of the aureole over her head.
1871. Rossetti, Jenny, 230. The gilded aureole In which our highest painters place Some living woman’s simple face.
b. 1851. Didron’s Chr. Iconog. (transl. by E. J. Millington), I. 107. The aureole surrounds the entire body.
1880. E. Venables, in Smith’s Dict. Chr. Antiq., s.v. Nimbus, The aureole (aureola, the golden reward of special holiness) may be defined as the nimb of the body, as the ordinary nimbus is that of the head.
3. fig. A glorifying halo.
1852. J. H. Newman, Univ. Educ., 363. In his beaming countenance Philip had recognized the aureol of a saint.
1861. O. W. Holmes, Elsie V., 344. The aureole of young womanhood had not yet begun to fade from around her.
1869. Lecky, Europ. Mor., II. iv. 281. The aureole which the genius of Theodoric cast around his throne.
1871. R. H. Hutton, Ess., I. 326. Shrinking infirmity and self-contempt, hidden in a sort of aureole of revelations abundant beyond measure—that was St. Paul.
4. transf. An actual halo of radiating light; esp. in Astr. that seen in eclipses.
1857. B. Taylor, N. Trav., xxv. 256. All faces … tinged by the same wonderful aureole, shone as if transfigured.
1861. Lytton, Str. Story, II. 383. There, on the threshold, gathering round her bright locks the aureole of the glorious sun, stood Amy.
1871. Proctor, Light Sc., 105. The glorious aureole of light seen around the sun during total eclipses.
5. transf. or fig. in wider sense.
1842. Mrs. Browning, Grk. Chr. Poets (1863), 89. An inseparable aureole of sweet sound.
1867. Miss Braddon, Aur. Floyd, iv. 34. Bulstrode’s ideal woman … crowned with an aureole of pale auburn hair.
