moonbeam

In William Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream 1590.[1] Compound of moon +‎ beam.

• (US) enPR: mo͞on'bēm, IPA^(key): /ˈmun.bim/

moonbeam (plural moonbeams)

1. A shaft of moonlight.[2]
   • 1850, Lydia Sigourney, The Brother from Poems for the Sea, page 70:

     A moonbeam pierced the heavy cloud!

2. Moonlight generally.
3. Any of various Australasian lycaenid butterflies of the genus Philiris.
4. (definition needed)
   • 1980: Pauline Kael in The New Yorker

     While you're responding to the dithering confusing Lynda is causing in the bus depot, you're absorbing the emotions between mother and child. Darcy is often very grownup around her mother, as if she knew that Lynda is a bit of a moonbeam and needs looking after.

• moon ray

• sunbeam