16 April 2014

umbra

[uhm-bruh]

noun, plural um·bras, um·brae [uhm-bree]

1. shade; shadow.
2. the invariable or characteristic accompaniment or companion of a person or thing.
3. Astronomy.
a. the complete or perfect shadow of an opaque body, as a planet, where the direct light from the source of illumination is completely cut off. ‘The blood moon was fully eclipsed by the Earth’s umbra’.
Compare penumbra (partial or incomplete shadow outside the complete shadow of an opaque body, as a planet).
b. the dark central portion of a sunspot. Compare penumbra (shadowy, indefinite or marginal area)
4. a phantom or shadowy apparition, as of someone or something not physically present; ghost; spectral image.

Origin:
1590–1600; < Latin: shade, shadow

Related forms
um·bral, adjective

Anagram

rumba

Today’s aphorism

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

– Bernard Baruch

On this day

16 April – Panda Appreciation Day. It was on this day in 1972, that the People’s Republic of China presented US President Richard Nixon with two pandas, Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing.

16 April 73AD – The Great Jewish Revolt ends when the fortress Masada falls to the Romans.

16 April 1850 – death of Marie Tussaud, French-English sculptor, founder of Madam Tussaud’s wax museum. Born 1 December 1761.

16 April 1917 – Vladimir Lenin returns to Petrograd, Russia following exile in Switzerland.

16 April 1947 – Bernard Baruch coins the term ‘Cold War’ to describe the relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union.

16 April 1990 – Dr Jack Kevorkian, (euthanasia activist, otherwise known as the Doctor of Death) participates in his first assisted suicide.