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Ray vs Radiance - What's the difference?

ray | radiance | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between ray and radiance

is that ray is a beam of light or radiation while radiance is the quality of being radiant, shining, bright or splendid.

As a verb ray

is to emit something as if in rays.

As a proper noun Ray

is {{surname|from=nicknames}} from a Middle English nickname meaning a king or a roe.

ray

English

Etymology 1

Via (etyl), from (etyl) rai, from (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)
  • A beam of light or radiation.
    • I saw a ray of light through the clouds.
  • (zoology) A rib-like reinforcement of bone or cartilage in a fish's fin.
  • (zoology) One of the spheromeres of a radiate, especially one of the arms of a starfish or an ophiuran.
  • (botany) A radiating part of a flower or plant; the marginal florets of a compound flower, such as an aster or a sunflower; one of the pedicels of an umbel or other circular flower cluster; radius.
  • (obsolete) Sight; perception; vision; from an old theory of vision, that sight was something which proceeded from the eye to the object seen.
  • * Alexander Pope
    • All eyes direct their rays / On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze.
  • (mathematics) A line extending indefinitely in one direction from a point.
  • (colloquial) A tiny amount.
    • Unfortunately he didn't have a ray of hope .
    Derived terms
    * death ray * gamma ray * manta ray * ray gun * stingray * X-ray

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To emit something as if in rays.
  • To radiate as if in rays
    • (Elizabeth Barrett Browning)

    Etymology 2

    (etyl) (m), from (etyl) (m).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A marine fish with a flat body, large wing-like fins, and a whip-like tail.

    • Etymology 3

    Shortened from array.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To arrange.
  • (obsolete) To stain or soil; to defile.
  • * 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , VI.4:
    • From his soft eyes the teares he wypt away, / And form his face the filth that did it ray .

    Etymology 4

    From its sound, by analogy with the letters chay, jay, gay, kay, which it resembles graphically.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The name of the letter ?/?, one of two which represent the r sound in Pitman shorthand.
    • Related terms
    * ar, in Latin and the name of the other Pitman r

    Etymology 5

    Noun

    (-)
  • (obsolete) Array; order; arrangement; dress.
  • * Spenser
    • And spoiling all her gears and goodly ray .

    Etymology 6

    Alternative forms.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (music)

    • Anagrams

    * English terms with multiple etymologies ----

    radiance

    English

    Noun

    (wikipedia radiance)
  • the quality of being radiant, shining, bright or splendid
    • Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crowned. — Milton.
  • (physics) the flux of radiation emitted per unit solid angle in a given direction by a unit area of a source