What does "rayleigh" mean?

A unit of brightness (of the sky at night) equal to 10¹⁰/4π quanta per square meter per second per steradian

What is a synonym for "rayleigh"?

Common synonyms include: third baron rayleigh.

//ˈreɪli// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A unit of brightness (of the sky at night) equal to 10¹⁰/4π quanta per square meter per second per steradian

Proper Noun

1
A surname.
2
Lord Rayleigh, English physicist
3
A town and civil parish with a town council in Rochford district, Essex, England (OS grid ref TQ8090).
4
A neighbourhood of Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, named after the English town.

"Mary asked Tom why the sky is blue, and he told her about Rayleigh scattering of sunlight."

Etymology 1

For Lord Rayleigh, English physicist

Etymology 2

Of the same origin as Raleigh (which is usually pronounced differently); see Wikipedia at Rayleigh, Essex § Toponymy.

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