Rainbow vs Iridescent - What's the difference?
rainbow | iridescent |
A multicoloured arch in the sky, produced by prismatic refraction of light within droplets of rain in the air.
Any prismatic refraction of light showing a spectrum of colours.
A wide assortment; a varied multitude.
(label) An illusion, mirage.
(baseball) A curveball, particularly a slow one.
(poker slang) In Texas hold 'em or Omaha hold 'em, a flop that contains three different suits.
Multicoloured.
(attributive, chiefly, US) Made up of several races or ethnicities, or (more broadly) of several cultural or ideological factions.
* 2006 , Anthony Summers, Robbyn Swan, Sinatra: The Life , page 246:
* 2007 , Melissa Haussman, Birgit Sauer, Gendering the state in the age of globalization , page 67:
* 2007 , Hooson, in a Letter to the Western Mail, 19 June 2007, published in Crossing the Rubicon: coalition politics Welsh style by John Osmond, page 28:
* 2008 , Bidyut Chakrabarty, Indian politics and society since independence , page 76:
(attributive) LGBT.
* 2005 , Alan McKee, The public sphere: an introduction , page 167:
(poker, chiefly, of a flop) Composed]] entirely of different [[suit#Noun, suits.
(not comparable) Producing a display of lustrous, rainbow-like colors; prismatic.
Brilliant, lustrous, or colorful.
As adjectives the difference between rainbow and iridescent
is that rainbow is multicoloured while iridescent is producing a display of lustrous, rainbow-like colors; prismatic.As a noun rainbow
is a multicoloured arch in the sky, produced by prismatic refraction of light within droplets of rain in the air.As a verb rainbow
is to pattern with many colours, like a rainbow.rainbow
English
(wikipedia rainbow)Noun
(en noun)- ''a rainbow of possibilities
- ''Many electoral promises are rainbows , vanishing soon after poll day.
Quotations
* 1911 , Francis R. Steel, Catching the Rainbow Trout'', in ''The Outing Magazine , volume 58, page 482: *: Finally, by actual trial, I have found that I can catch more rainbow by using one fly than with a two or three-fly cast. * 1994 , John Simon, Of Dogs, Their Masters, and Others'', in ''New York magazine, September 5 1994, page 51: *: That Asian-American actor Thomas Ikeda contributes a pleasingly frantic Panthino would not be considered rainbow enough.Synonyms
* (prismatic reflection) spectrumDerived terms
* chase rainbows * end of the rainbow * lunar rainbow * marine rainbow * rainbow coalition * rainbow fish * rainbow perch * rainbow runner * rainbow trout * rainbow wrasse * somewhere over the rainbow * supernumerary rainbowAdjective
(-)- He went along with them because the Pack was a rainbow group — two Italian-Americans, a black man, a Jew (Bishop), and a sometime Englishman (Lawford) — and they were making a point.
- The 1999 June elections led to a surprise change in the governing coalition from the long-term ruling Christian Democrats to a rainbow group of Greens, Liberals, and Socialists.
- [...] it seemed to me to be naive indeed for the Liberal Democrats to believe that they could simply enter into a rainbow alliance against the Labour Government.
- Mayawati has succeeded in building a social coalition that inverts the pyramid of caste/class hierarchy by building a rainbow alliance of social groups, now dominated by that greatest underclass of all, namely Dalits.
- Similarly, the question of who belongs in such a rainbow alliance isn't set. It can include gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals. It can include people who are 'questioning' which culture they belong to [...]
Usage notes
In the United States, 'rainbow' groups/families/alliances/coalitions were originally those made up of several races or ethnicities. The term is now used more broadly, to refer (in the 2007 quotation, for example) to an alliance of several political parties.References
* Weisenberg, Michael (2000)The Official Dictionary of Poker. MGI/Mike Caro University. ISBN 978-1880069523