halo

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halo a disc or circle of light shown surrounding or above the head of a saint or holy person to represent their holiness, recorded in this sense from the mid 19th century. (From the 6th century, living persons were shown with a square halo.) The word dates from the mid 16th century (denoting a circle of light round the sun), and comes via medieval Latin and Latin from Greek halōs ‘disc of the sun and moon’.

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