noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A bright spot or patch between sunspots.

   "Glaucous, hoar, enfouldered, cyathiform, / Making mere faculae of the sun and moon […]"

2. 2
   a large bright spot on the sun's photosphere occurring most frequently in the vicinity of sunspots wordnet
3. 3
   a bright spot on a planet wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

blazeflameflareflashglanceglint

Example

More examples

"Glaucous, hoar, enfouldered, cyathiform, / Making mere faculae of the sun and moon […]"

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin facula (“little torch”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.