Word.ws English Dictionary

nimbus

Syllables: nimb·usUK/ˈnɪmbəs/

nimbus noun: a circle of light; a halo.

nimbus: a lone tree in a grassy field under a cloudy sky
Photo by Péter Kövesi on Unsplash

Noun

nimbus (plural nimbi or nimbuses)

  1. A circle of light; a halo.
  2. A grey rain cloud.
    • [pages 99–100] Cumulo-cirro-stratus vel Nimbus. […] The rain cloud. A cloud or system of clouds from which rain is falling. It is a horizontal sheet, above which the cirrus spreads, while the cumulus enters it laterally and from beneath. […] [page 107] The nimbus, although in itself one of the...1803 July, Luke Howard, “XVIII. On the Modifications of Clouds, and on the Principles of Their Production, Suspension, and Destruction; being the Substance of an Essay Read before the Askesian...

nimbus meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Kannada

nimbus in Tamil

nimbus, halo, aureole over the head of a deity
பிரபை pirapai

nimbus in Urdu

ہالہ

nimbus in Bengali

প্রভামণ্ডল, জ্যোতিশ্চক্র, বৃষ্টিবাহী মেঘ

nimbus in Kannada

ಪ್ರಭಾವಲಯ, ಮಳೆಯ ಮೋಡ, ಮಳೆಮೋಡ, ಬೆಳಕಿನ ಬಳಸಿ
More languagesFewer languages
nimbus in Tagalog
dagim, ulaning alapaap
nimbus in Indonesian
nimbus

Forms of nimbus

pluralnimbi
pluralnimbuses

Origin of nimbus

Learned borrowing from Latin nimbus (“dark cloud”). Doublet of nimb. Sense 2 (“grey rain cloud”) was coined by the British chemist and amateur meteorologist Luke Howard (1772–1864): see the 1803 quotation.

Words formed from nimbus

Words that rhyme with nimbus

Questions about nimbus

What does nimbus mean?
Nimbus means a circle of light; a halo.
What is nimbus in Tamil?
Nimbus in Tamil is பிரபை (pirapai). See Nimbus meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is nimbus?
Nimbus is a noun.
How do you pronounce nimbus?
Nimbus is pronounced /ˈnɪmbəs/ (UK).
What is the plural of nimbus?
The plural of nimbus is nimbi.

Words near nimbus in the dictionary

  1. Nimboran
  2. nimbose
  3. nimbostrati
  4. nimbostratus
  5. nimbs
  6. nimbus
  7. nimbused
  8. nimbuses
  9. nimbuslike
  10. nimby
  11. nimbyish

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: nimbus (page history and authors); பிரபை (Tamil) (page history and authors); nimbus (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); nimbus (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); nimbus (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-nimbus.ogg, En-au-nimbus.ogg.

Cite this entry: “nimbus.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nimbus. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.