different between penumbra vs umbra

English

Etymology

From New Latin penumbra, from Latin paene (“almost”) + umbra (“shadow”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /p??n?mb??/, enPR: p?-n?m'br?
• Hyphenation: pen?um?bra or pe?num?bra

Noun

penumbra (plural penumbras or penumbrae)

1. A partially shaded area around the edges of a shadow, especially an eclipse.
   • 2011, Galen C. Duree, Jr., Optics for Dummies, Wiley Publishing, Inc. (2011), ?ISBN, page 61:

     The other places see the penumbra of the moon's shadow fall on the earth, so the eclipse is partial, and part of the sun's disc is still visible.

   • 2011, Frank McLynn, Captain Cook: Master of the Seas, Yale University Press (2011), ?ISBN, page 112:

     In the boiling temperature of 119 ° F – the hottest they had experienced so far – they watched as the penumbra of Venus blurred its outline at the precise moment the disc crossed the sun.

   • 2012, Michael A. Seeds & Dana E. Backman, Horizons: Exploring the Universe, Brooks/Cole (2012), ?ISBN, page 37:

     The part of the moon that remains in the penumbra receives some direct sunlight, and the glare is usually great enough to prevent your seeing the faint coppery glow of the part of the moon in the umbra.

2. (astronomy) A region around the edge of a sunspot, darker than the sun's surface but lighter than the middle of the sunspot.
3. (figuratively) An area of uncertainty or intermediacy between two mutually exclusive states or categories.
   • 1998, Debraj Ray, Development Economics, Princeton University Press (1998), ?ISBN, pages 346-347:

     These firms or businesses are not illegal in the strict sense, but there is a shadowy penumbra within which they live, and it is often convenient for the government to look the other way.

   • 2010, Denis Farkasfalvy, Inspiration and Interpretation: A Theological Introduction to Sacred Scripture, The Catholic University of America Press (2010), ?ISBN, page 188:

     […] God chose to descend into the realm of human imperfection, where the light of truth is spare and must exist in the penumbra of partial knowledge mixed with partial ignorance.

   • 2011, Bill Schwartz, The White Man's World, Oxford University Press (2011), ?ISBN, page 136:

     Unlike some of his contemporaries Parkes never implied that the Irish were close, in the racial hierarchy, to black, condemned to some racial penumbra, between black and white; but nor, given Catholic exclusion from the given traditions of his native radicalism, were the Irish white in the same way that he was.

4. (figuratively) An area that lies on the edge of something; a fringe.
   • 1975, Bryan R. Wilson, The Noble Savages: The Primitive Origins of Charisma and Its Contemporary Survival, Quantum Books (1975), ?ISBN, page 116:

     Whilst the orthodox, de-charismatized churches steadily lose influence and support and the new cults develop, in the religious penumbra there have persisted, during the last century, echoes of charisma.

   • 1986, John McCormick, "Chicago Bounces Back", Newsweek, Volume 108, page 42:

     But for all the expansionist energy of a metro area that sprawls from Wisconsin to Indiana (total population: 7.2 million), downtown Chicago and its penumbra also stand rejuvenated.

   • 2000, Steve Jones, The Language of Genes, Flamingo (2000), ?ISBN, page xv:

     Some are accounts of the latest advances, but too many are in that weary penumbra of science inhabited by sociologists, who wander like children in a toyshop, playing with devices they scarcely understand.

5. Something related to, connected to, and implied by, the existence of something else that is necessary for the second thing to be full and complete in its essential aspects.
   • 1965, William O. Douglas, Griswold v. Connecticut, United States Reports, 381 U.S. 479

     The foregoing [United States Supreme Court] cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.

6. (medicine, preceded by "ischaemic", after a stroke) A region of the brain that has lost only some of its blood supply, and retains structural integrity but has lost function.

Synonyms

• (area of uncertainty or intermediacy): grey area
• (area that lies on the edge of something): periphery, outskirt

Translations

Further reading

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “penumbra”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Finnish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?penumbr?/, [?pe?numbr?]
• Rhymes: -enumbr?
• Syllabification: pe?numb?ra

Noun

penumbra

1. penumbra

Declension

Synonyms

• (part of a shadow): puolivarjo

Portuguese

Etymology

From New Latin penumbra, from Latin paene (“almost”) + umbra (“shadow”).

Pronunciation

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /p?.?n?.b??/
• Hyphenation: pe?num?bra

Noun

penumbra f (plural penumbras)

1. situation of low light

Romanian

Noun

penumbra f

1. definite nominative/accusative singular of penumbr?

Spanish

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: pe?num?bra

Noun

penumbra f (plural penumbras)

1. half-light
2. shadow, shade
   • 1926, Federico García Lorca, Oda a salvador Dalí

     El mundo tiene sordas penumbras y desorden,

     en los primeros términos que el humano frecuenta.

     Pero ya las estrellas ocultando paisajes,

     señalan el esquema perfecto de sus órbitas.

3. penumbra

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin umbra (“shadow”). Doublet of umber.

Pronunciation

• enPR: ?m?br?, IPA^(key): /??mb??/
• Rhymes: -?mb??
• Hyphenation: um?bra

Noun

umbra (plural umbras or umbrae)

1. The fully shaded inner region of a shadow cast by an opaque object.
   1. (astronomy) The area on the earth or moon experiencing the total phase of an eclipse.
2. (astronomy) The central region of a sunspot.
3. (chiefly literary) A shadow.
4. (archaic) An uninvited guest brought along by one who was invited.
5. One of the family Umbridae of mudminnows.
6. A sciaenoid fish, the umbrine.

Coordinate terms

• antumbra
• penumbra

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Burma, rumba

Catalan

Noun

umbra f (plural umbres)

1. female equivalent of umbre

Adjective

umbra

1. feminine singular of umbre

Danish

Etymology

From Latin umbra (“shadow”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?mbra/, [??mb???]

Noun

umbra c (singular definite umbraen, not used in plural form)

1. umber (pigment, colour)
2. (as an adjective) umber (of a reddish brown colour)

Finnish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?umbr?/, [?umbr?]
• Rhymes: -umbr?
• Syllabification: umb?ra

Noun

umbra

1. umbra

Declension

Synonyms

• (part of a shadow): täysvarjo

Anagrams

• Burma, burma, rumba

Interlingua

Etymology

From Latin.

Noun

umbra (plural umbras)

1. shadow

Italian

Adjective

umbra

1. feminine singular of umbro

Noun

umbra f (plural umbre)

1. female equivalent of umbro

Anagrams

• bruma, rumba

Latin

Etymology

If from Old Latin *omra, possibly from a Proto-Indo-European *h?mr-u-, *h?mrup-; related to Ancient Greek ??????? (amaurós, “dark”), Luwian ???????????????????? (“rot”), and ???????????????? (“rotten”) (also see Hittite Maraššantiya, their name for the K?z?l?rmak River), and this Indo-European source is said to be a possible borrowing from a Semitic root ?-m-r (“be red”), compare Arabic ? ? ?? (? m r).

Generally connected with Lithuanian unksna.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?um.bra/, [??mb?ä]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?um.bra/, [?umb??]

Noun

umbra f (genitive umbrae); first declension

1. a shadow
2. a shade
3. a ghost

Declension

First-declension noun.

Derived terms

Related terms

• umbr?ti?

Descendants

References

• umbra in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• umbra in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• umbra in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book?^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
• umbra in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• De Vaan, Michiel (2008) Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7)?^[2], Leiden, Boston: Brill, ?ISBN

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From Latin umbra (“shade, shadow”).

Noun

umbra m (definite singular umbraen, indefinite plural umbraer or umbraar, definite plural umbraene or umbraane)

1. (chemistry)
2. a dark earthy colour
3. (astronomy) the shade from a planet
4. (astronomy, by extension) central region of a sunspot

References

• “umbra” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Romanian

Noun

umbra f

1. definite nominative/accusative singular of umbr?

Spanish

Adjective

umbra f

1. feminine singular of umbro

Noun

umbra f (plural umbras, masculine umbro, masculine plural umbros)

1. female equivalent of umbro