Advertisement

Advertisement

cumulus

[ kyoo-myuh-luhs ]

noun

, plural cu·mu·lus.
  1. a heap; pile.
  2. a cloud of a class characterized by dense individual elements in the form of puffs, mounds, or towers, with flat bases and tops that often resemble cauliflower: as such clouds develop vertically, they form cumulonimbus.


cumulus

/ ˈkjuːmjʊləs /

noun

  1. a bulbous or billowing white or dark grey cloud associated with rising air currents Compare cirrus stratus
  2. histology the mass of cells surrounding a recently ovulated egg cell in a Graafian follicle
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


cumulus

/ kyo̅o̅myə-ləs /

, Plural cumuli kyo̅o̅myə-lī′

  1. A dense, white, fluffy cloud with a flat base, a multiple rounded top, and a well-defined outline. The bases of cumulus clouds form primarily in altitudes below 2,000 m (6,560 ft), but their tops can reach much higher. Cumulus clouds are generally associated with fair weather but can also bring rain when they expand to higher levels. The clouds' edges are well-defined when they are composed of water droplets and fuzzy when made up of ice crystals.
  2. See illustration at cloud


Discover More

Word History and Origins

Origin of cumulus1

1650–60; < New Latin ( Latin: mass, pile)
Discover More

Word History and Origins

Origin of cumulus1

C17: from Latin: mass
Discover More

Example Sentences

Suddenly, I found myself hiking through clouds, wisps of cumulus drifting across the trail and through the dwarf pine trees and between barren, limbless trunks of the high-alpine forest.

Using airborne instruments to analyze small cumulus clouds affected by the smoke, the scientists found that these clouds contained, on average, five times as many water droplets as unaffected clouds.

On our second day, the smoke scattered in the midsummer breeze and high cumulus clouds, and the air was clearer.

Cumulus Media, which now owns the former Dial Global, declined to comment on the suit for this story.

And I love these wonderful fat cumulus clouds that we get in the sky.

“We've had a tough go of it this last year,” Cumulus CEO Lew Dickey said Tuesday morning.

A great cumulus cloud piled up like a Himalayan peak in the west beyond my mouse-gray dwelling.

He pointed upward to a break in the trees, to a large cumulus cloud that had assumed a fantastic shape.

In the afternoon small cumulus clouds arose in the horizon, and we again put forward under a temperature of 95 degrees.

It was a detached and imperial cumulus, a great frothy pyramid that sailed in majestic splendor.

He received the acknowledgment and brought his machine around to face the lordly bulk of the cumulus.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement


cumulouscumulus clouds