umbrella (umbrel a)

[Formerly also um brello (also umbrel, q. v.); was formerly given to a sort of fan used to protect the face from the sun, but is now applied to a light canopy of silk, cotton, or other cloth, extended on a folding frame composed of bars or strips of steel, cane, etc., which slides on a rod or stick. A small and light form of umbrella, carried by women as a protection from the rays of the sun, often in gay colors, or ornamented with ribbons, lace, etc., is habitually called a parasol. The umbrella had its origin in very remote times in the far East, and in some Asiatic countries it was (and still is) regarded as an emblem of royalty or a mark of distinction. In ancient Greece its use was familiar among women for protection from the and it is frequently represented in vase paintings and terra-cottas. As a defense from rain or snow it was not used in western Europe till early in the eighteenth century. The word is sometimes used figuratively. Compare cloak. Umbrellaes, that is, things that minister shadow unto them [Italians) for shelter against the scorching heate. Coryat, Crudities, I. 135. Umbrello (Ital. Ombrella ), a fashion of round and broad Fans, wherewith the Indians (and from them our great ones) preserve themselves from the heat of the sun or fire; and hence any little shadow, Fan, or other thing wherewith women guard their faces from the sun. Blount, Glo ographia (1670). The tuck'd up sempstre walks with hasty strides, While streams run down her oil'd umbrella's sides. Swift , A City Shower. The inseparable gold umbrella , which in that country [Burma] as much denotes the grandee as the star or garter does in England. J. W. Palmer , Up and Down the Irrawaddi, p. 90. Moreover, he [Jonas Hanway] is said to have been the first man who made a practice [about 1750] of using an umbrella while walking in the streets of London. Dict . Nat . Biog ., XXIV. 313. 2. In zoöl .: ( a ) The gelatinous disk or swimming-bell of an acaleph, as a jellyfish, by the rhythmical contraction and expansion of which the creature swims, taken either with or without the velum. It is usually the largest, most symmetB. Jonson , Magnet ick Lady, iii. 3. rical, and most coherent part of the jellyfish, from which Shadows have their figure, motion, And their umbratile action from the real Posture and motion of the body's act. 3. Unreal; unsubstantial. This life that we live disjoyned from God is but a shadow and umbratil imitation of that. Dr. H. More, Philos. Poems, p. 337, notes. umbra tion (um-bra's hon), п. [ Nor all this by transient and superficial knowledge, figures, and umbra tions, but immediate and intuitive notices. Evelyn, True Religion, I. 241. other parts hang like streamers, either around its margin or from the center of the under surface. If we compare this bell to a woman's sun-umbrella, lined as well as covered with silk, and having a fringe, then the outer or aboral surface is the exumbrella; the inner or under lining sur face is the adumbrella, or adoral surface surrounding the mouth, from which large mouth-parts may hang in the position of the stick or handle of the umbrella; the ring of metal which slides up and down the stick may represent the gastric cavity of the creature, and the metal ribs of the umbrella may suggest the radial canals which go out to the circumference. At points around the margin are the series of adradial, perradial, and interradial sense-organs or other appendages, as tentacles, and where these are long and streaming they represent the fringe of the imagined 2. In her., same as adumbration. umbratioust (um-bra's hus), a. [Irreg. var. of parasol. See cuts under acaleph, Aurelia, Discophora, and umbrageous, after umbratic, etc.: see umbra geo us.] Apt to take umbrage; tetchy. [Rare.] Age,... which... is commonly... umbratious and apprehensive. Sir H. Wotton, Reliquiæ. Same as bell a umbra-tree (um'brä-trē), n. sombra-tree.