Luna

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈluːnÉ™/
• Homophones: lunar, looner in non-rhotic accents

Borrowed from Latin lūna ("moon; month; crescent").

Full definition of luna

Noun

1. (entomology) A luna moth: a member of species .
• 1944, Elizabeth Enright, Then There Were Five, Farrar & Rinehart, page 80:“Gee,” whispered Oliver. He sat there staring. “A luna! I never thought I’d see a real luna!”
• 1969, Sterling North, “An Introduction to Butterflies and Moths”, in Boys' Life, May 1969 issue, Boy Scouts of America, page 64:On the previous evening we had discovered with delight a luna with the fabulous moons, one on each pale green wing.
• 2010, Sally Roth (contributor), in Judy Pray (compiler), Garden Wisdom & Know-How: Everything You Need to Know to Plant, Grow, and Harvest, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., ISBN 978-1-57912-837-1, page 348:Spray BT on your young oak to protect against gypsy moths, and you wipe out future lunas, cecropias, and everything else on the leaves, along with the pests.
2. (Christianity, chiefly Catholicism and Anglicanism) A lunette: a crescent-shaped receptacle, often glass, for holding the (consecrated) host (the bread of communion) upright when exposed in the monstrance. from 19th c.“luna” in Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum (editors), An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church: A User-Friendly Reference for Episcopalians, Church Publishing, Inc. (2000), ISBN 978-0-89869-211-2.
• 1907 May, “Dominicanus”, “The Rosary and the Blessed Sacrament”, in the Dominican Friars, The Rosary Magazine, Volume 30, Number 5, page 494:The Bread of Angels is first taken from the tabernacle, where it rests in the luna, and placed upon the altar, covered with a corporal. After genuflecting, the priest puts the luna containing the Blessed Sacrament on its throne—the monstrance—and elevates it ...
• 1917, John F. Sullivan, The Externals of the Catholic Church, BiblioLife, LLC (2009), ISBN 9781113714084, pages 115–116:This receptacle is called a “luna” or “lunula” (a moon, or a little moon), and has glass on either side, so that the Host may be seen when enclosed therein. ... ¶ ... ¶ The ciborium, the pyx and luna of the ostensorium are blessed with a simpler formula than that used for the chalice, and ... ¶ ... ¶ The chalice, the paten, the luna and the pyx are sacred things, true sacramentals, and are worthy of deepest reverence; for ...
• 2007, John Trigilio and Kenneth Brighenti, The Catholicism Answer Book: The 300 Most Frequently Asked Questions, Sourcebooks, Inc., ISBN 9781402208065, page 156:The luna, which is a piece of glass in the shape of a moon, contains the Blessed Sacrament, previously consecrated. The luna is then placed in the middle of the sunburst of the monstrance.

Synonyms

• (glass holder) lunette, lunula

From the Hawaiian word luna ("leader; supervisor").

1986 , Mary Kawena Pukui, Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian dictionary: Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian, revised and enlarged edition (University of Hawaii Press)

Noun

1. (Hawaii) A foreman on a plantation.
• 1922, U. G. Murphy, “The Japanese Problem in Hawaii: How the Task of Christianizing and Americanizing the Oriental is Progressing”, in The Friend, Volume 91, Number 6 (June 1922) page 130:There are several reasons why the Hawaiian-born Japanese boys and girls do not take kindly to plantation labor, but one of the chief reasons is the objection to the kind of lunas who oversee the work of the laborers.
• 1959, James Michener, (novel), Fawcett Crest (1986), ISBN 9780449213353, page 737:... haoles could not visualize Chinese or Japanese in positions of authority. And from sad experience, the great plantation owners had discovered that the Americans they could get to serve as lunas were positively no good. Capable Americans expected office jobs and incapable ones were unable to control the Oriental ...
• 2000, Wayne Patterson, The Ilse: First-Generation Korean Immigrants in HawaiÊ»i, 1903–1973, University of HawaiÊ»i Press, ISBN 978-0-8248-2241-5, page 17:While political problems between Japan and Korea would soon spill over into HawaiÊ»i and sour relations between the two groups, the primary concern the Koreans had was with plantation work and the haoles (Caucasians) who acted in supervisory capacities as managers, doctors, and lunas.
• 2000, Sally Engle Merry, Colonizing Hawai'i: the cultural power of law, page 321:After the day was over I went to the luna to count my day but he would not. Then I went to him the second time and he said he would not put it down.

Usage notes

This noun, though inflected as an English word (singular luna, plural lunas), is frequently italicized as a loanword.

Anagrams

• ulan, ulna, unal