n. See Saint Elmo's fire. [Portuguese and obsolete Spanish corpo santo, both from Latin corpus sānctum, holy body : corpus, body; see kwrep- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots + sānctus, holy, past participle of sancīre, to consecrate; see sak- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.