Other forms: nimbi
A nimbus is a dark rain cloud, or a halo of light around a figure. A nimbus of cloud, a golden nimbus, nimbus clouds.
In meteorology it is one of the terms Luke Howard coined in 1803 when he named the cloud types, and it survives in the compounds: cumulonimbus is the towering thunderstorm cloud and nimbostratus the flat grey rain sheet. In art, a nimbus is the disc of light round a saint's head — the same thing as a halo, and the word used in art history. Note that Latin nimbus meant simply a dark cloud.
1nounnimbusA dark rain cloud.
“A dark nimbus rolled in from the west, and soon the rain began.”
2nounhaloA halo of light around a figure.
“In the painting, a golden nimbus shines around the angel's head.”
nimbus is a cloud or a halo.
Latin nimbus meant a dark rain cloud. Luke Howard took it in 1803 for his cloud classification, and the halo sense came separately from the shining cloud that surrounded a god in classical art.
Latin
nimbus — dark cloud
English, today
nimbus
Latin nimbus (“dark cloud”). a doublet of nimb. cloud (“grey rain cloud”) was coined by Luke Howard (1772–1864): see the 1803 quotation.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire