Rainbow vs. Spectrum

Rainbownoun

A multicoloured arch in the sky, produced by prismatic refraction of light within droplets of rain in the air.

Rainbownoun

Any prismatic refraction of light showing a spectrum of colours.

Rainbownoun

(often used with “of”) A wide assortment; a varied multitude.

Rainbownoun

(figurative) An illusion, mirage.

Rainbownoun

(baseball) A curveball, particularly a slow one.

Rainbownoun

(poker slang) In Texas hold 'em or Omaha hold 'em, a flop that contains three different suits.

Rainbownoun

Rainbow trout.

Rainbowadjective

Multicolored.

Rainbowadjective

Made up of several races or ethnicities, or (more broadly) of several cultural or ideological factions.

Rainbowadjective

(attributive) LGBT.

Rainbowadjective

Composed entirely of different suits.

Rainbowverb

(transitive) To brighten with, or as with, a rainbow; to pattern with the colours of the rainbow.

Rainbowverb

(intransitive) To take the appearance of a rainbow.

Rainbownoun

A bow or arch exhibiting, in concentric bands, the several colors of the spectrum, and formed in the part of the hemisphere opposite to the sun by the refraction and reflection of the sun's rays in drops of falling rain.

Rainbownoun

an arc of colored light in the sky caused by refraction of the sun's rays by rain

Rainbownoun

an illusory hope;

Rainbow

A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky. It takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc.

Spectrumnoun

A range; a continuous, infinite, one-dimensional set, possibly bounded by extremes.

Spectrumnoun

Specifically, a range of colours representing light (electromagnetic radiation) of contiguous frequencies; hence electromagnetic spectrum, visible spectrum, ultraviolet spectrum, etc.

Spectrumnoun

The autism spectrum.

Spectrumnoun

(chemistry) The pattern of absorption or emission of radiation produced by a substance when subjected to energy (radiation, heat, electricity, etc.).

Spectrumnoun

The set of eigenvalues of a matrix.

Spectrumnoun

Of a bounded linear operator A, the set of scalar values λ such that the operator A—λI, where I denotes the identity operator, does not have a bounded inverse; intended as a generalisation of the linear algebra sense.

Spectrumnoun

The set, denoted Spec(R), of all prime ideals of a given ring R, commonly augmented with a Zariski topology and considered as a topological space.

Spectrumnoun

(obsolete) Specter, apparition.

Spectrumnoun

The image of something seen that persists after the eyes are closed.

Spectrumnoun

An apparition; a specter.

Spectrumnoun

The several colored and other rays of which light is composed, separated by the refraction of a prism or other means, and observed or studied either as spread out on a screen, by direct vision, by photography, or otherwise. See Illust. of Light, and Spectroscope.

Spectrumnoun

an ordered array of the components of an emission or wave

Spectrumnoun

broad range of related values or qualities or ideas or activities

Spectrum

A spectrum (plural spectra or spectrums) is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without steps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors in visible light after passing through a prism.