[See BURST sb. 2.]
1. A burst of sunlight; a sudden shining of the sun from behind a cloud.
1816. Scott, Return to Ulster, iii. And the standard of Fion flash’d fierce from on high, Like a burst of the sun when the tempest is nigh. [Note] In ancient Irish poetry, the standard of Fion, or Fingal, is called the Sun-burst.
1828. Moore, ’Tis gone, & for ever, ii. When Truth,… like a Sun-burst, her banner unfurl’d.
1841. Florist’s Jrnl. (1846), II. 33. The offsets … are removed to a temporary stage, fixed to a wall with a north aspect, the better to shade them from sunbursts.
1888. ‘M. Gray,’ Reproach Annesley, III. i. A sun-burst fell upon the violet pall.
fig. 1870. Lowell, Study Wind., Chaucer (1871), 177. The invocation of Venus,… by Lucretius, seems to me the one sunburst of purely poetic inspiration which the Latin language can show.
1886. H. M. Posnett, Compar. Lit., 185. Why that sunburst of creative power was so ephemeral.
2. A firework, a piece of jewelery, etc., constructed so as to imitate the sun with its rays.
1901. Greenough & Kittredge, Words & Ways, 260. It would be more logical to arrange the whole article in the form of a sunburst or a starfish.
1903. Helen Frances Huntington, in Smart Set, IX. 110/1. Mrs. Eddyngham wore a diaphanous white gown, caught at the throat by a diamond sunburst.
