Wednesday, June 11, 2008

ABC Wednesday: "U" is for Umbra

Had to dig deep this week for a "U":

Umbra: the darkest part of a shadow. It is actually the Latin word for shadow. You usually only see it used in relation to lunar eclipses (combined with prenumbra and antumbra).

So in the below photo of the southern wall of the Castillo de San Marcos, the left hand portion is an umbra because it is in full shadow... I think... ah, who cares. It's a "U", it's a photo. Mission accomplished. :)


12 comments:

Anonymous said...

wonderful. Now I've learned something new...

Leslie: said...

Thanks for the language lesson - never knew that. Great photo, too! Have a wonderful week. :D

Rune Eide said...

A nice and exceptionally rare U!

My U is here

mrsnesbitt said...

I didn't know this.....now I will make a point of dropping the word in a conversation! LOL!

Reader Wil said...

I've learnt a lot these past few weeks while blogging all over the world. Now I am glad to learn more about some u-words. Thanks for the photo!

AphotoAday said...

Well, umbra is one I haven't heard for quite a while...   Very original...

Neva said...

Alan, you are a hoot!!! mission accomplished indeed! love the UMBRA or whatever it is!!! nice post.
Mine is here.

Petunia said...

This is really nice and I didn't know this:)
Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Penumbra is a portuguese word meaning precisely being on a place that doesn´t have many light. Not absolute darkness , but few light!

Oman said...

i could have think of an umbrella or anything under the table or something ugly but an "umbra"? wow, you are very smart.

Katney said...

You are the third post I have seen using the root umbra--not counting all the umbrellas. umbra, umbrel, and umbrage

Suzi-k said...

good digging! Interesting. And so a question, if the left hand wall is the umbra, and the middle in the highlight, what about the slightly dark right hand one, would that fall into the definition of penumbra, antumbra or neither? Nice fort too!