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ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Electrical discharges in the atmosphere
Classified under:
Nouns denoting natural phenomena
Hypernyms ("atmospheric electricity" is a kind of...):
electrical discharge (a discharge of electricity)
atmospheric phenomenon (a physical phenomenon associated with the atmosphere)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "atmospheric electricity"):
elves (an acronym for emissions of light and very low frequency perturbations due to electromagnetic pulse sources; extremely bright extremely short (less than a msec) electrical flashes forming a huge ring (up to 400 km diameter) in the ionosphere)
blue jet; jet; reverse lightning (atmospheric discharges (lasting 10 msec) bursting from the tops of giant storm clouds in blue cones that widen as they flash upward)
lightning (abrupt electric discharge from cloud to cloud or from cloud to earth accompanied by the emission of light)
red sprites; sprites (atmospheric electricity (lasting 10 msec) appearing as globular flashes of red (pink to blood-red) light rising to heights of 60 miles (sometimes seen together with elves))
