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penumbra

[pi-nuhm-bruh] / pɪˈnʌm brə /




Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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A lunar eclipse happens when the Moon passes through the outer region of the Earth's shadow called the penumbra.

From BBC ● Mar. 11, 2025

But the Earth also casts a wider, and lighter, shadow, called the penumbra, which extends away from the planet at an angle.

From Slate ● Apr. 5, 2024

Eastern time on Monday, the moon will start to pass through only the outermost part of Earth’s shadow, known as the penumbra.

From New York Times ● Mar. 24, 2024

His non-adult fiction occupies a penumbra between “not really classics” and “better than most of the crap pushed at kids.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 22, 2023

But such moments were tempered by the long penumbra cast by Everest, which seemed to recede little with the passage of time.

From "Into Thin Air" by Jon Krakauer

Her steps became feebler, and she strained her eyes to look afar upon the naked road, now indistinct amid the penumbrae of night.

From Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

From the top of the terrace he gazed upon this vague form standing up like a phantom in the penumbrae of the evening.

From Salammbo by Gustave Flaubert

When the ascending currents are powerful, they create those appearances which astronomers designate the nuclei, the penumbrae, the faculae.

From The Story of the Herschels by Anonymous

On a December day in the foothills near Seattle, walking into the sun southward and nearly blinded, all you can see are penumbras of emerald-green moss along the vertical edges of the trunks.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 18, 2022

Rigging raises a sheet, in front of and behind which the dancers play with shadows, misshapen ones with extra auras and penumbras.

From New York Times ● Sep. 11, 2022

I have been studying the Constitution very carefully, including the emanations of the penumbras, and I can see why people might think there was some inherent right to dinner.

From Washington Post ● Jul. 8, 2022

He wrote, mystically, that “specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.”

From The New Yorker ● May 18, 2015

The deputy pivoted in the direction of the doorway and shouted at a featureless face broken up in equidistant penumbras by four bars, “Who’s there?”

From "The Great Santini" by Pat Conroy


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