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Fig.: A misleading influence; a decoy. Scared and guided by the ignis fatuus of popular superstition. Jer. Taylor.

death. -- Death damp, a cold sweat at the coming on of death. -- Death fire, a kind of ignis fatuus supposed to forebode death. And round about in reel and rout, The death fires danced at night. Coleridge. -- Death grapple, a grapple or struggle for life. -- Death in life, a condition but little removed from death;…

ed to be left by elves, in room of one they had stolen. See Changeling. -- Elf fire, the ignis fatuus. Brewer. -- Elf owl (Zoöl.), a small owl (Micrathene Whitneyi) of Southern California and Arizona.

Without reality; illusory, like the ignis fatuus. Thence fatuous fires and meteors take their birth. Danham.

A fiery meteor; an ignis fatuus; a rocket.

rum vulgare) with a spathe or involucral leaf resembling a cowl. -- Friar's lantern, the ignis fatuus or Will-o'-the-wisp. Milton. -- Friar skate (Zoöl.), the European white or sharpnosed skate (Raia alba); -- called also Burton skate, border ray, scad, and doctor.

the hero of a well-known nursery story. -- Jack-with-a-lantern, Jack-o'-lantern. (a) An ignis fatuus; a will-o'-the-wisp. "[Newspaper speculations] supplying so many more jack-o'-lanterns to the future historian." Lowell. (b) A lantern made of a pumpkin so prepared as to show in illumination the features of a human f…

y the creation of twelve Tory peers. J. R. Green. Having swamped himself in following the ignis fatuus of a theory. Sir W. Hamilton.

See Ignis fatuus.

A Will-o'-the-wisp; an ignis fatuus. The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread. Tennyson.