"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), lunradio (Esperanto), 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: 81 13 2 4 Disambiguation of 'shaft of moonlight': 96 2 1 1
  2. 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: 4 60 16 20 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Esperanto translations, Terms with Finnish translations, Terms with German translations, Terms with Hungarian translations, Terms with Japanese translations, Terms with Korean translations, Terms with Mandarin translations, Terms with Polish translations, Terms with Russian translations, Terms with Tagalog translations Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 11 35 27 27 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 7 45 14 33 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 9 48 14 28 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 5 47 24 25 Disambiguation of Terms with Esperanto translations: 7 54 17 21 Disambiguation of Terms with Finnish translations: 7 52 20 21 Disambiguation of Terms with German translations: 8 52 19 21 Disambiguation of Terms with Hungarian translations: 10 50 22 18 Disambiguation of Terms with Japanese translations: 7 52 16 25 Disambiguation of Terms with Korean translations: 7 50 21 21 Disambiguation of Terms with Mandarin translations: 22 41 16 20 Disambiguation of Terms with Polish translations: 9 49 21 21 Disambiguation of Terms with Russian translations: 8 54 17 21 Disambiguation of Terms with Tagalog translations: 8 50 21 21
  3. Someone who tends to be dreamy and prone to unrealistic romanticism.
    Sense id: en-moonbeam-en-noun-MOuOiR1F
  4. A goal or aspiration that appears attractive but is ultimately insubstantial.
    Sense id: en-moonbeam-en-noun-EiR1V5B8
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Synonyms: moon ray, moon beam, moon-beam [archaic] Related terms: sunbeam

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

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  "etymology_text": "Compound of moon + beam.",
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          "ref": "c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:",
          "text": "Be kinde and curteous to this gentleman, / Hop in his walkes, and gambole in his eyes, / Feede him with Apricocks, and Dewberries, / With purple Grapes, greene figges, and Mulberries, / The hony bagges ſteale from the humble Bees, / And for night tapers, croppe their waxen thighes, / And light them with at the fiery Glowe-wormes eyes, / To haue my loue to bedde, and to ariſe, / And pluck the wings, from painted Butterflies, / To fanne the Moone-beames from his ſleeping eyes, / Nod to him Elues, and doe him curteſies.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1850, Lydia Sigourney, The Brother from Poems for the Sea, page 70:",
          "text": "A moonbeam pierced the heavy cloud!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        }
      ],
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        "A shaft of moonlight."
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      "id": "en-moonbeam-en-noun-AYMWInMI",
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      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "yuèguāng",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "月光"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "eo",
          "lang": "Esperanto",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "lunradio"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "kuunsäde"
        },
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          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Mondstrahl"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "holdsugár"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 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": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "ko",
          "lang": "Korean",
          "roman": "darui gwangseon",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "달의 광선"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "promień księżyca"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "lúnnyj luč",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "лу́нный луч"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "polosá lúnnovo svéta",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
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          ],
          "word": "полоса́ лу́нного све́та"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "96 2 1 1",
          "code": "tl",
          "lang": "Tagalog",
          "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
          "word": "sinag ng buwan"
        }
      ]
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          "_dis": "4 60 16 20",
          "kind": "lifeform",
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        "Any of various Australasian lycaenid butterflies of the genus Philiris."
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      "id": "en-moonbeam-en-noun-mbaOKbNJ",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        }
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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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1968 July 12, William A. McWhirter, “Coalition against the Humphrey steamroller”, in LIFE:",
          "text": "So much for moonbeams and politics.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A goal or aspiration that appears attractive but is ultimately insubstantial."
      ],
      "id": "en-moonbeam-en-noun-EiR1V5B8"
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "enpr": "mo͞on'bēm",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈmun.bim/",
      "tags": [
        "US"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0",
      "word": "moon ray"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0",
      "word": "moon beam"
    },
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0 0 0",
      "tags": [
        "archaic"
      ],
      "word": "moon-beam"
    }
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  "word": "moonbeam"
}
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    "Terms with Finnish translations",
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          "ref": "c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, A Midsommer Nights Dreame. […] (First Quarto), London: […] [Richard Bradock] for Thomas Fisher, […], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:",
          "text": "Be kinde and curteous to this gentleman, / Hop in his walkes, and gambole in his eyes, / Feede him with Apricocks, and Dewberries, / With purple Grapes, greene figges, and Mulberries, / The hony bagges ſteale from the humble Bees, / And for night tapers, croppe their waxen thighes, / And light them with at the fiery Glowe-wormes eyes, / To haue my loue to bedde, and to ariſe, / And pluck the wings, from painted Butterflies, / To fanne the Moone-beames from his ſleeping eyes, / Nod to him Elues, and doe him curteſies.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1850, Lydia Sigourney, The Brother from Poems for the Sea, page 70:",
          "text": "A moonbeam pierced the heavy cloud!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
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        "A shaft of moonlight."
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          "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": "quote"
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        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019, Rebecca Alford D'Amato, There Is No Cheese, page 195:",
          "text": "You are such a moonbeam. Now come here and kiss me.",
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          "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": "quote"
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          "ref": "1968 July 12, William A. McWhirter, “Coalition against the Humphrey steamroller”, in LIFE:",
          "text": "So much for moonbeams and politics.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
        },
        {
          "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": "quote"
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        "US"
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      "word": "moon ray"
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      "word": "moon beam"
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "yuèguāng",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "月光"
    },
    {
      "code": "eo",
      "lang": "Esperanto",
      "sense": "shaft of moonlight",
      "word": "lunradio"
    },
    {
      "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"
}

Download raw JSONL data for moonbeam meaning in English (7.2kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.