What is "halo"

Halo \Ha"lo\ (h[=a]"l[-o]), n.; pl. Halos (-l[=o]z). [L. halos, acc. halo, Gr. "a`lws a thrashing floor, also (from its round shape) the disk of the sun or moon, and later a halo round it; cf. Gr. e'ily`ein to enfold, 'ely`ein to roll round, L. volvere, and E. voluble.]

1. A luminous circle, usually prismatically colored, round the sun or moon, and supposed to be caused by the refraction of light through crystals of ice in the atmosphere. Connected with halos there are often white bands, crosses, or arches, resulting from the same atmospheric conditions.

2. A circle of light; especially, the bright ring represented in painting as surrounding the heads of saints and other holy persons; a glory; a nimbus.

3. An ideal glory investing, or affecting one's perception of, an object.

4. A colored circle around a nipple; an areola.

Halo \Ha"lo\, v. t. & i. [imp. & p. p. Haloed (-l[=o]d); p. pr. & vb. n. Haloing.] To form, or surround with, a halo; to encircle with, or as with, a halo.

The fire That haloed round his saintly brow.
--Southey.

1560s, from Latin halo (nominative halos), from Greek halos "disk of the sun or moon, ring of light around the sun or moon" (also "threshing floor" and "disk of a shield"), of unknown origin. Sense of "light around the head of a holy person or deity" first recorded 1640s. As a verb from 1801.

n. 1 (context astronomy English) A circular band of coloured light, visible around the sun or moon etc., caused by reflection and refraction of light by ice crystals in the atmosphere. 2 (context astronomy English) A cloud of gas and other matter surrounding and captured by the gravitational field of a large diffuse astronomical object, such as a galaxy or cluster of galaxies. 3 Anything resembling this band, such as an effect caused by imperfect developing of photographs. 4 (context religion English) nimbus, a luminous disc, often of gold, around or over the heads of saints, etc., in religious paintings. 5 The metaphorical aura of glory, veneration or sentiment which surrounds an idealized entity. vb. (context transitive English) To encircle with a halo.

1. n. an indication of radiant light drawn around the head of a saint [syn: aura, aureole, nimbus, glory, gloriole]

2. a toroidal shape; "a ring of ships in the harbor"; "a halo of smoke" [syn: ring, annulus, anulus, doughnut, anchor ring]

3. a circle of light around the sun or moon

4. [also: haloes (pl)]

Halo (from Greek , halōs) is the name for a family of optical phenomena produced by light interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Halos can have many forms, ranging from colored or white rings to arcs and spots in the sky. Many of these are near the Sun or Moon, but others occur elsewhere or even in the opposite part of the sky. Among the most well known halo types are the circular halo (properly called the 22° halo), light pillars and sun dogs, but there are many more; some of them fairly common, others (extremely) rare.

The ice crystals responsible for halos are typically suspended in cirrus or cirrostratus clouds high (5–10 km, or 3–6 miles) in the upper troposphere, but in cold weather they can also float near the ground, in which case they are referred to as diamond dust. The particular shape and orientation of the crystals are responsible for the type of halo observed. Light is reflected and refracted by the ice crystals and may split up into colors because of dispersion. The crystals behave like prisms and mirrors, refracting and reflecting light between their faces, sending shafts of light in particular directions.

Atmospheric phenomena such as halos were used as part of weather lore as an empirical means of weather forecasting before meteorology was developed. They often do mean that rain is going to fall within the next 24 hours as the cirrostratus clouds that cause them can signify an approaching frontal system.

Other common optical phenomena involving water droplets rather than ice crystals include the glory and the rainbow.

HaLo (Ayako Hirakata) is a Japanese pop musician. She can be heard on Lori Carson's The Finest Thing. She has also worked with Kate St John and Sid Griffin, and has a separate recording career in Japan.

Halo is a fictional superheroine that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. She first appeared in a special insert in The Brave and the Bold #200 (July 1983), and was created by Mike W. Barr and Jim Aparo.

Halo is a military science fiction first-person shooter video game franchise created by Bungie and now managed and developed by 343 Industries, a subsidiary of Microsoft Studios. The series centers on an interstellar war between humanity and a theocratic alliance of aliens known as the Covenant. The Covenant, led by their religious leaders called the Prophets, worship an ancient civilization known as the Forerunners, who perished in combat with the parasitic Flood. The central focus of the franchise builds off the experiences of Master Chief John-117, one of a group of supersoldiers codenamed Spartans, and his artificial intelligence (AI) companion, Cortana. Other characters, such as Noble Six from Halo: Reach, are also introduced in the series. The term "Halo" refers to the Halo rings: large, habitable superweapons that were created to destroy the parasitic Flood. They are similar to the Orbitals in Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, and to author Larry Niven's Ringworld concept.

The games in the series have been praised as being among the best first-person shooters on a video game console, and are considered the Xbox's " killer app". This led to the term "Halo killer" being used to describe console games that aspire, or are considered, to be better than Halo. Fueled by the success of Halo: Combat Evolved, and by immense marketing campaigns from publisher Microsoft, its sequels went on to record-breaking sales. The games have sold over 65 million copies worldwide, with the games alone grossing almost $3.4 billion.

Strong sales of the games led to the franchise's expansion to other media; there are multiple best-selling novels, graphic novels, and other licensed products. Halo Wars took the franchise into new video game genre territory, as a real-time strategy game, while the rest of the games in the series are first-person shooters. Beyond the original trilogy, Bungie developed the expansion Halo 3: ODST, and a prequel, Halo: Reach, their last project for the franchise. A high-definition remake of the first game, entitled Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, was released on November 15, 2011, exactly ten years after the release of the original. A new installment in a second series of games, Halo 4, was released on November 6, 2012. Halo: The Master Chief Collection, a remastered compilation of the four primary Halo titles, was released for the Xbox One on November 11, 2014.

The collective group of fans of the series is referred to as the "Halo Nation".

A halo (from Greek , halōs; also known as a nimbus, aureole, glory, or gloriole) is a ring of light that surrounds a person in art. They have been used in the iconography of many religions to indicate holy or sacred figures, and have at various periods also been used in images of rulers or heroes. In the sacred art of Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and Christianity, among other religions, sacred persons may be depicted with a halo in the form of a circular glow, or flames in Asian art, around the head or around the whole body—this last one is often called a mandorla. Halos may be shown as almost any colour or combination of colours, but are most often depicted as golden, yellow or white when representing light or red when representing flames.

Halo is a drone/ sludge metal band formed in Melbourne, Australia in 1994, which is now based in London, England. It is currently signed to Relapse Records.

Halo is a live album, released in 2004, by Current 93. The front cover is a drawing by the same David Tibet which reproduces the cover of a Moody Blues album of 1971 Every Good Boy Deserves Favour.

Halo (February 7, 1969 – November 28, 2000) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse and an important Champion sire.

Halo was a Christian rock band formed in Alabama in 1980. Touring in the South for almost a decade before a chance meeting with an encouraging Bob Hartman of Petra fame, Halo was signed by Pakaderm Records and recorded their first album in 1989. Another album followed in 1992 before the group disbanded in 1993.

Halo are a rock band from Bristol, England, who formed in 1999 and disbanded in 2004. In 2002, they released one album, and had three singles in the UK Singles Chart. They reformed in 2011 and are currently recording their second album.

Halo is a 1996 Indian film directed by Santosh Sivan. It tells the story of Sasha ( Benaf Dadachandji ) who is searching for her lost puppy in the streets of Mumbai and the variety of people that she meets.

Halo is a song recorded by Scottish alternative rock band Texas released on 6 April 1997 and the second single to be released from their UK #1 fourth album White on Blonde. It debuted and peaked at #10 on the UK Singles Charts.

Halo is the third single from the album The Blackening by the groove metal band Machine Head. This is the only song on the album to be written by all four band members. It was also featured as one of the metal genre tracks in The Sims 2: Bon Voyage. On 24 March 2008, Machine Head announced through their official website that they are to film a video for Halo, asking local Bay Area fans (and in some cases, fans from around the globe) to be extras in the video. Fans from the UK and Germany attended. The video features bassist Adam Duce's father as the evil figure.

The video was released 31 May 2008, premiering on MTV2's Headbangers Ball. The edit version as heard on the video is much shorter than the original as heard on the Blackening, cut from 9:04, down to 5:11. Flynn cited Metallica as its inspiration.

Halo was a high end gay bar located at 1435 P Street, NW in the Logan Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C., United States. Founded in 2004 by Ed Bailey and John Guggenmos, Halo first gained attention by being one of the few smoke-free LGBT bars in Washington, D.C. before the citywide smoking ban was enacted in January 2007. Bailey and Guggenmos previously started other Washington, D.C. LGBT clubs and events including the Velvet Nation party at Nation, Tracks, Millennium at the 9:30 Club, Ozone, and Cobalt. In 2007, Bailey and Guggenmos sold their remaining share of Halo to Babak Movahedi and opened Town Danceboutique on U Street, NW.

Halo's location is a narrow, two-story building that originally served as an automobile repair shop. When the bar opened in 2004, only the second floor was used by Halo and it consisted of 1,500 square feet (139 sq m). In September 2005, the first floor of Halo opened bringing the total amount of space to approximately 3,000 sq ft (278 sq m) with a capacity for 200 people. Halo's interior design by Greg Keffer of Studios Architecture is influenced by the Art Deco movement. The bar features curved ceilings, white walls, blue and purple accent lighting, silver bar stools, and winding banquettes. In August 2008, the second floor underwent a $200,000 renovation designed by Paolo Zavala of VOA Associates Incorporated that was described as retro-futuristic and compared to scenes from Stanley Kubrick's movie, A Clockwork Orange. The reopening of the second floor bar took place on September 5, 2008, and included a ribbon cutting ceremony by Mayor Adrian Fenty.

Halo closed in early 2010, and was replaced by Mova Lounge. Mova Lounge declared bankruptcy in October 2010. Mova Lounge closed in December 2012. The space was radically renovated (removing much of its modernist look) and occupied by Number Nine in early 2011. The new bar caters to a wider range of customers than Halo or Mova Lounge, although most of its clientele is still primarily gay men.

"Halo" is the first single off metal band Soil's second studio album, Scars.The video is filmed in a rundown house, lit by lamps and sunlight through boarded-up windows. Towards the end of the video, the band can be seen walking on the walls and ceiling, when their instruments begin to break, seemingly through the violence of their performance. Halo is listed as the top Soil song on iTunes.

Halo rings are eponymous fictional megastructures and superweapons in the Halo science fiction franchise. They are referred to as "Installations" by their AI monitors, and are collectively referred to as "the Array" by the installations' creators, the Forerunners. The series' alien antagonists, the Covenant, refer to the structures as the "Sacred Rings", believing them to form part of a greater religious prophecy known as "The Great Journey". According to Halos fiction, the Forerunners built the rings to contain and study the Flood, an infectious alien parasite. The rings act together as a weapon of last resort; when fired, the rings kill any sentient life capable of falling prey to the Flood, starving the parasite of its food. The installations are at the crux of the plot progression for the Halo series.

The Halos are massive ringworlds, which feature their own wildlife and weather. The constructs resemble Iain M. Banks' Orbital concept in shape and design. The structure that Halo: Combat Evolved takes place on was initially to be a hollowed-out planet, but was changed to its ring design later in development; a staff member provided "Halo" as the name for both the ring and the video game after names such as Red Shift were suggested.

Halo is the debut album of guitarist and composer Andy Hawkins, issued under the moniker Azonic. It was released on July 1, 1994 by Strata Records. Marking a departure from his work with Blind Idiot God, the album comprises four lengthy improvised guitar drones accompanied by electronics. Hawkins described the music as "violent ambiance, harnessing the resonant frequencies of the void to take you out of the here and now."

"Halo" is a song by American singer Beyoncé from her third studio album I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008). Included on the I Am... disc, it was intended to give a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Beyoncé's life, stripped of her make-up and celebrity trappings. Columbia Records released the song, the album's fourth single, to mainstream radio in the United States on January 20, 2009, and to international markets from February 20. Inspired by Ray LaMontagne's 2004 song "Shelter", "Halo" was composed by Ryan Tedder, Evan Bogart and Beyoncé. It was conceived by Tedder specifically for Beyoncé, although there was media speculation that it had been originally written for Leona Lewis.

"Halo" is a contemporary R&B power ballad whose lyrics describe a sublime love. It features drum, piano, keyboard, string, synthesizer, and percussion instrumentation. Kelly Clarkson claimed that Tedder reused the musical arrangement in her 2009 song " Already Gone". "Halo" received acclaim from music critics, who made comparisons with Lewis' 2007 song " Bleeding Love". Its production and Beyoncé's emotional vocals also received critical praise. "Halo" was nominated for Record of the Year and won Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 52nd Grammy Awards. It won Best Song at the 2009 MTV Europe Music Awards. "Halo" topped the singles charts of Brazil, Norway and Slovakia, and reached the top five on the singles chart of Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the US. It was certified quintuple-platinum in Australia, and double-platinum in New Zealand, Spain and the US.

Philip Andelman directed the ballad's music video, which features American actor Michael Ealy. It portrays a romantic relationship between Beyoncé's and Ealy's characters. Critics complimented Beyoncé's looks in the clip. An alternative music video, which shows Ealy's character being chased by police through a forest at night, was posted on the Internet in May 2010. The lyrics to "Halo" were changed for two of Beyoncé's special live performances: in a tribute to Michael Jackson following his death, and in a tribute to the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake. The song has been covered by many artists, including Florence and the Machine, LP, Harper Blynn, Gary Lightbody, and Westlife. It was performed on the television show Glee, and was added to the international soundtrack of the Brazilian soap opera India – A Love Story.

Halo is a wind powered kinetic sculpture in Sydney, Australia. Located at Central Park, the artwork is part of a major mixed-use urban renewal project to redevelop the old Kent Brewery site in Broadway.

It was designed by artists Jennifer Turpin and Michaelie Crawford of Turpin + Crawford Studio while engineering firm, Partridge, was responsible for the delivery.

The sculpture consists of a 12-metre diameter tapered yellow ring held by a 6 metre long silver cantilevered arm pivoting off-centre atop a 13 metre high angled silver mast. The arm also serves as a sail, allowing the ring to turn and tilts in response to live winds.

Commissioned by the developers of Central Park in collaboration with the local government, Halo was officially opened on 14 August 2012 and has since been donated to the City of Sydney as part of its City Art Collection.