Cirro-

combining form of CIRRUS.

  1.  Bot. and Zool., as in Cirro-pinnate, -pinnated adjs., pinnate, with a tendril. Cirrostome a., having the mouth cirrose or bearded; also subst.

  2.  Meteor., as in Cirro-cumulus, a form of cloud combining the shapes of the cirrus and cumulus and consisting mainly of a series of roundish and fleecy cloudlets in contact with one another; hence Cirro-cumular, -cumulated, -cumulative, -cumulous adjs. Cirro-filum (see quot.). Cirro-stratus, a form of cloud combining the shapes of the cirrus and stratus, consisting of horizontal or inclined sheets attenuated upwards into light cirri; hence Cirro-strative, -stratous adjs.

1837.  Athenæum, 28 Jan., 64/2. Drifting across the sky in *cirrocumular patches.

1853.  Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxxv. (1854), 318. The *cirro-cumulated resemblances of Hood and Richardson.

1815.  T. Forster, Res. Atmosph. Phenom., i. § 5. 17. A state of aqueous gas, which, from peculiarities in the electric state of the air, may assume the *cirrocumulative form. Ibid., ii. § 12. 78. A cloud composed … of little *cirrocumulous nubeculae.

1803.  L. Howard, Modif. Clouds (1865), 4. *Cirro-cumulus.… Small, well defined roundish masses, in close horizontal arrangement or contact.

1878.  Huxley, Physiogr., iii. (ed. 2), 43. The ‘mackerel sky’ is due to numerous detached clouds of the composite forms termed cirro-cumulus.

1883.  Athenæum, 30 June, 833/2. On the Structure of the Ice-cloud disposed in Threads, proposed to be called *Cirro-filum.

1753.  Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v. Leaf, *Cirro-pinnated [leaf], the extremity of whose petiole has one or more tendrils.

1881.  Sci. American, 26 Feb., 139. The true fishes form one class … the lancelets and *cirrostomes a class.

1815.  T. Forster, Res. Atmosph. Phenom., ii. § 12. 79. The cloud which gives … the makerel-back sky is composed of the long waving *cirrostrative nubeculæ, but these sometimes acquire the apparent substance and solid look of cirrocumulus.

1803.  L. Howard, Modif. Clouds (1865), 4. *Cirro-stratus.… Jorizontal or slightly inclined masses attenuated towards a part or the whole of their circumference, bent downward, or undulated; separate, or in groups consisting of small clouds having these characters.

1846.  Ruskin, Mod. Paint., I. II. 3. iii. § 19. Low horizontal bars or fields of cloud (cirrostratus) associate themselves, more especially before storms, with the true cumulus.