rays


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Related to rays: Manta rays

rays

narrow beams of light; traces of an enlightening influence: rays of hope
Not to be confused with:
raise – lift, build, or erect: The whole community helped them raise the house.
raze – tear down or demolish: It took a demolition crew to raze the hotel.
Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree Copyright © 2007, 2013 by Mary Embree

ray 1

 (rā)
n.
1.
a. A narrow stream of radiant energy, especially visible light, traveling in a straight or nearly straight line.
b. A narrow stream of particles such as protons traveling in a straight or nearly straight line.
c. A rapidly moving particle traveling in a straight or nearly straight line.
d. rays Sunshine: Let's go to the beach and catch some rays.
2. A small amount; a trace: not a ray of hope left.
3. Mathematics A straight line extending from a point. Also called half-line.
4. A structure or part having the form of a straight line extending from a point, such as:
a. Any of the bright streaks that are seen radiating from some craters on the moon.
b. A ray flower or the strap-shaped portion of the corolla of a ray flower.
c. A branch of an umbel.
d. One of the bony spines supporting the membrane of a fish's fin.
e. One of the arms of a starfish or other radiate animal.
tr.v. rayed, ray·ing, rays
1. To send out as rays; emit.
2. To supply with rays or radiating lines.
3. To cast rays on; irradiate.

[Middle English rai, from Old French, from Latin radius, pointed stick, spoke, radius of a circle, ray of light (from the representation of rays of light as spearlike shafts ), of unknown origin.]

ray 2

 (rā)
n.
1. Any of various cartilaginous fishes of the superorder Batoidea, having ventral gill slits, enlarged pelvic fins that are fused to the sides of the head, and a flattened body, and including the stingrays, skates, and guitarfishes.
2. Any of various members of this superorder having a whiplike tail usually with a stinging spine, such as a stingray, considered in contrast to a guitarfish, sawfish, or skate.

[Middle English, from Anglo-Norman raie, from Latin raia; possibly akin to Dutch rog and Old English reohhe (both the Latin and the Germanic perhaps ultimately being borrowed from the same European substrate source).]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Translations
References in classic literature ?
Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks.
The sun, just bursting forth from behind a cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half broken by the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the windows, the fence, and on Pierre's horses standing before the hut.
Half way up the steep was a yawning cave, black as night beyond the point where the rainbow rays of the colored suns reached into it.
Every morning she placed a large basin full of water on her window-sill, and as soon as the sun's rays fell on the water the Rainbow appeared as clearly as it had ever done in the fountain.
"Because we should have seen our continents and seas in a new light-- the first resplendent under the solar rays, the latter cloudy as represented on some maps of the world.
"They were tears of pity, young lady, that heaven blesses and instead of falling from my eyes like the everyday tears that we all of us shed, they turned into two rays of light which slanted nearer and nearer to the man standing at the altar with you, till they touched his breast.
We are to secure all "loose objects"; hood up our Fleury Rays; and "on no account to attempt to clear snow from our conning-towers till the weather abates." Under-powered craft, we are told, can ascend to the limit of their lift, mail-packets to look out for them accordingly; the lower lanes westward are pitting very badly, "with frequent blow-outs, vortices, laterals, etc."
The solar rays shone through the watery mass easily, and dissipated all colour, and I clearly distinguished objects at a distance of a hundred and fifty yards.
He wore but a single article of clothing or adornment, a small collar of gold from which depended upon his chest a great ornament as large as a dinner plate set solid with huge diamonds, except for the exact center which was occupied by a strange stone, an inch in diameter, that scintillated nine different and distinct rays; the seven colors of our earthly prism and two beautiful rays which, to me, were new and nameless.
Away - away - 'mid seas of rays that roll Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul - The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense) Can struggle to its destin'd eminence - To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode, And late to ours, the favour'd one of God - But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm, She throws aside the sceptre - leaves the helm, And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns, Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.
Ray was a quiet, rather nervous man of perhaps fifty with a brown beard and shoulders rounded by too much and too hard labor.
The Story Girl and Peter were there, of course, and Sara Ray's mother had allowed her to come up on condition that she should be home by eight sharp.