saint elmo's fire

1. 1.

   an electrical discharge accompanied by ionization of surrounding atmosphere

   Synonymscorona dischargecoronacorposantSt. Elmo's fireSaint Elmo's lightSaint Ulmo's fireSaint Ulmo's lightelectric glow

   Broaderdischarge

Questions about saint elmo's fire

What does saint elmo's fire mean?

saint elmo's fire means "an electrical discharge accompanied by ionization of surrounding atmosphere".

What is another word for saint elmo's fire?

Close synonyms include corona discharge, corona, corposant, St. Elmo's fire, Saint Elmo's light. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is saint elmo's fire a common word?

saint elmo's fire is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.