"moonbeam" meaning in English

See moonbeam in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈmun.bim/ [US] Forms: moonbeams [plural]
enPR: mo͞on'bēm [US] Etymology: Compound of moon + beam. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|moon|beam}} moon + beam Head templates: {{en-noun}} moonbeam (plural moonbeams)
  1. A shaft of moonlight. Categories (topical): Light Translations (shaft of moonlight): 月光 (yuèguāng) (Chinese Mandarin), kuunsäde (Finnish), Mondstrahl [masculine] (German), holdsugár (Hungarian), 月光 (alt: がっこう, gakkō, げっこう, gekkō) (Japanese), 달의 광선 (darui gwangseon) (Korean), promień księżyca (Polish), лу́нный луч (lúnnyj luč) [masculine] (Russian), полоса́ лу́нного све́та (polosá lúnnovo svéta) [feminine] (Russian), sinag ng buwan (Tagalog)
    Sense id: en-moonbeam-en-noun-AYMWInMI Disambiguation of Light: 47 39 8 3 3 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 5 33 27 24 Disambiguation of 'shaft of moonlight': 82 15 2 1 1
  2. Moonlight generally. Categories (topical): Light
    Sense id: en-moonbeam-en-noun-dm-3JrRt Disambiguation of Light: 47 39 8 3 3
  3. Any of various Australasian lycaenid butterflies of the genus Philiris. Categories (lifeform): Gossamer-winged butterflies
    Sense id: en-moonbeam-en-noun-mbaOKbNJ Disambiguation of Gossamer-winged butterflies: 18 4 36 18 24 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with topic categories using raw markup Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 5 33 27 24 Disambiguation of English entries with topic categories using raw markup: 21 6 41 15 17
  4. Someone who tends to be dreamy and prone to unrealistic romanticism.
    Sense id: en-moonbeam-en-noun-MOuOiR1F Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 5 33 27 24
  5. A goal or aspiration that appears attractive but is ultimately insubstantial.
    Sense id: en-moonbeam-en-noun-EiR1V5B8 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 5 33 27 24
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: moon ray, moon beam, moon-beam [archaic] Related terms: sunbeam

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for moonbeam meaning in English (7.9kB)

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  "etymology_templates": [
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        "2": "moon",
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      "expansion": "moon + beam",
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  "etymology_text": "Compound of moon + beam.",
  "forms": [
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      "form": "moonbeams",
      "tags": [
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            "Nature",
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            "Fundamental"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1850, Lydia Sigourney, The Brother from Poems for the Sea, page 70",
          "text": "A moonbeam pierced the heavy cloud!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1972, Ardyce DeLapp, Stories that Teach: A Collection, page 31",
          "text": "Quickly the moon sent a moonbeam down, and it shone through the window, right on the face of the sleeping child, kissed him, and gave him a pleasant dream.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Lindsay Tonkin, Moonbeams and Shadows, page 28",
          "text": "The mountain flanked on the east by Devil's Peak and glancing to the right Lion's Head and Signal Hill shimmers and the residents at the foot of the mountain bask in the splendour of moonbeams.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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      "glosses": [
        "A shaft of moonlight."
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      "links": [
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      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "yuèguāng",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "月光"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "kuunsäde"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Mondstrahl"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "holdsugár"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "alt": "がっこう, gakkō, げっこう, gekkō",
          "code": "ja",
          "lang": "Japanese",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "月光"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "ko",
          "lang": "Korean",
          "roman": "darui gwangseon",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "달의 광선"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "promień księżyca"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "lúnnyj luč",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "лу́нный луч"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "polosá lúnnovo svéta",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "полоса́ лу́нного све́та"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "82 15 2 1 1",
          "code": "tl",
          "lang": "Tagalog",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "sinag ng buwan"
        }
      ]
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      "glosses": [
        "Moonlight generally."
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          "kind": "lifeform",
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        {
          "ref": "1980, Pauline Kael, The New Yorker",
          "text": "While you're responding to the dithering confusing Lynda is causing in the bus depot, you're absorbing the emotions between mother and child. Darcy is often very grownup around her mother, as if she knew that Lynda is a bit of a moonbeam and needs looking after.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Tony D'Souza, Mule: A Novel of Moving Weight, page 280",
          "text": "Dreaming of the mountain was for moonbeams, he told me, not for people who had been born up there.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Mike Royko, Mike Royko: The Chicago Tribune Collection 1984-1997",
          "text": "You really are a moonbeam. The way I remember it, most of the shouting and protesting was coming from young guys who had college deferments and were worried what would happen when they got out of school and the deferment ran out and they couldn't get a job teaching in a ghetto school so they could get another deferment.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Rebecca Alford D'Amato, There Is No Cheese, page 195",
          "text": "You are such a moonbeam. Now come here and kiss me.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Someone who tends to be dreamy and prone to unrealistic romanticism."
      ],
      "id": "en-moonbeam-en-noun-MOuOiR1F",
      "links": [
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          "romanticism"
        ]
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          "_dis": "11 5 33 27 24",
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          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
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      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1882, United States. Congress, Congressional Record, page 3490",
          "text": "Therefore it has always seemed clear to me, and that has been the decision of the Senate for many years before when we have had these questions stoutly contested, that where the direction (which is legislation, of course, just as the appropriation is) is confined to the appropriation, to the expenditure of the money appropriated, which can not be paid out of the Treasury without the consent of Congress, Congress may say that it shall be paid for moonbeams, if it pleases, although the Constitution of the United States itself might say that no money should be paid for buying moonbeams.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1968 July 12, William A. McWhirter, “Coalition against the Humphrey steamroller”, in LIFE",
          "text": "So much for moonbeams and politics.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1991, New Unionist - Issues 162-209",
          "text": "So the idea of Common Cause and other reform advacates that government corruption can be ended by public financing of election campaigns is just another silly moonbeam.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in the 9/11 Wars, page 2",
          "text": "It did not take long to realize that the dozens of missions we were running all over southern Iraq were really nothing more than an occasionally dangerous hunt for moonbeams, and that the British mission as a whole was losing its way.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
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      ],
      "id": "en-moonbeam-en-noun-EiR1V5B8"
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  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmun.bim/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "enpr": "mo͞on'bēm",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
      "word": "moon ray"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
      "word": "moon beam"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0 0",
      "tags": [
        "archaic"
      ],
      "word": "moon-beam"
    }
  ],
  "word": "moonbeam"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with topic categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with IPA pronunciation",
    "en:Gossamer-winged butterflies",
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  "etymology_templates": [
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        "2": "moon",
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      "expansion": "moon + beam",
      "name": "compound"
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  "etymology_text": "Compound of moon + beam.",
  "forms": [
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      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
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      "args": {},
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "sunbeam"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1850, Lydia Sigourney, The Brother from Poems for the Sea, page 70",
          "text": "A moonbeam pierced the heavy cloud!",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1972, Ardyce DeLapp, Stories that Teach: A Collection, page 31",
          "text": "Quickly the moon sent a moonbeam down, and it shone through the window, right on the face of the sleeping child, kissed him, and gave him a pleasant dream.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Lindsay Tonkin, Moonbeams and Shadows, page 28",
          "text": "The mountain flanked on the east by Devil's Peak and glancing to the right Lion's Head and Signal Hill shimmers and the residents at the foot of the mountain bask in the splendour of moonbeams.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A shaft of moonlight."
      ],
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          "moonlight"
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    {
      "categories": [
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        "Any of various Australasian lycaenid butterflies of the genus Philiris."
      ],
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      "categories": [
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        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
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        {
          "ref": "1980, Pauline Kael, The New Yorker",
          "text": "While you're responding to the dithering confusing Lynda is causing in the bus depot, you're absorbing the emotions between mother and child. Darcy is often very grownup around her mother, as if she knew that Lynda is a bit of a moonbeam and needs looking after.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2011, Tony D'Souza, Mule: A Novel of Moving Weight, page 280",
          "text": "Dreaming of the mountain was for moonbeams, he told me, not for people who had been born up there.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Mike Royko, Mike Royko: The Chicago Tribune Collection 1984-1997",
          "text": "You really are a moonbeam. The way I remember it, most of the shouting and protesting was coming from young guys who had college deferments and were worried what would happen when they got out of school and the deferment ran out and they couldn't get a job teaching in a ghetto school so they could get another deferment.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Rebecca Alford D'Amato, There Is No Cheese, page 195",
          "text": "You are such a moonbeam. Now come here and kiss me.",
          "type": "quotation"
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          "ref": "1882, United States. Congress, Congressional Record, page 3490",
          "text": "Therefore it has always seemed clear to me, and that has been the decision of the Senate for many years before when we have had these questions stoutly contested, that where the direction (which is legislation, of course, just as the appropriation is) is confined to the appropriation, to the expenditure of the money appropriated, which can not be paid out of the Treasury without the consent of Congress, Congress may say that it shall be paid for moonbeams, if it pleases, although the Constitution of the United States itself might say that no money should be paid for buying moonbeams.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1968 July 12, William A. McWhirter, “Coalition against the Humphrey steamroller”, in LIFE",
          "text": "So much for moonbeams and politics.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1991, New Unionist - Issues 162-209",
          "text": "So the idea of Common Cause and other reform advacates that government corruption can be ended by public financing of election campaigns is just another silly moonbeam.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in the 9/11 Wars, page 2",
          "text": "It did not take long to realize that the dozens of missions we were running all over southern Iraq were really nothing more than an occasionally dangerous hunt for moonbeams, and that the British mission as a whole was losing its way.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "A goal or aspiration that appears attractive but is ultimately insubstantial."
      ]
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  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmun.bim/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
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    {
      "enpr": "mo͞on'bēm",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "moon ray"
    },
    {
      "word": "moon beam"
    },
    {
      "tags": [
        "archaic"
      ],
      "word": "moon-beam"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "yuèguāng",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "月光"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "kuunsäde"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Mondstrahl"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "holdsugár"
    },
    {
      "alt": "がっこう, gakkō, げっこう, gekkō",
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "月光"
    },
    {
      "code": "ko",
      "lang": "Korean",
      "roman": "darui gwangseon",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "달의 광선"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "promień księżyca"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "lúnnyj luč",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "лу́нный луч"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "polosá lúnnovo svéta",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "полоса́ лу́нного све́та"
    },
    {
      "code": "tl",
      "lang": "Tagalog",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "sinag ng buwan"
    }
  ],
  "word": "moonbeam"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-30 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (210104c and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.