aureole

plural aureoles

1. A circle of light or halo around the head of a deity or a saint.

   Those white women whose superiority encircled them like an aureole, could quieten any raucous gathering by just placing a finger to a lip.

   2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 4, in Small Island, London: Review, page 69

   3 more examples

   The lady's hair no woman could possess without feeling it her pride. It was the daily theme of her lady's-maid,—a natural aureole to her head.

   1859, George Meredith, chapter 16, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC

   They sat quietly, side by side, without speaking. Philip enjoyed having her near him. He was warmed by her radiant health. A glow of life seemed like an aureole to shine about her.

   1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 122”, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC

   She feels, with all our furniture, Room yet for something more secure Than our self-kindled aureoles To guide our poor forgotten souls […]

   1916, Edwin Arlington Robinson, “The Voice of Age”, in The Man Against the Sky

2. broadlyAny luminous or colored ring that encircles something.

   It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard […]

   1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part One, Chapter 1

   1 more example

   The dust of the road and his long, wiry hair made aureoles of red about him in the westering light […]

   1972, Ursula K. Le Guin, chapter 6, in The Farthest Shore, Atheneum Books

3. astronomyA corona.
4. geographyA ring around an igneous intrusion.

   Cleavage and folds are imprinted are overprinted by the contact metamorphic aureole, indicating that they belong to a pre-intrustive episode of rock deformation and accompanying regional deformation.

   1990, Roger Mason, Petrology of the Metamorphic Rocks, Chapter 3: "Metamorphism associated with igneous intrusions"

5. alternativelifestyleAlternative form of aureola (“increment to blessedness”).

present singular third person aureoles · participle present aureoling · participle past aureoled · past aureoled

1. transitiveTo surround with, or as if with, a halo.