Definition of "aureole"

The lady's hair no woman could possess without feeling it her pride. It was the daily theme of her lady's-maid,—a natural aureole to her head.

1859, George Meredith, chapter 16, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall

They sat quietly, side by side, without speaking. Philip enjoyed having her near him. He was warmed by her radiant health. A glow of life seemed like an aureole to shine about her.

1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “chapter 122”, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company

She feels, with all our furniture,Room yet for something more secureThan our self-kindled aureolesTo guide our poor forgotten souls […]

1916, Edwin Arlington Robinson, “The Voice of Age”, in The Man Against the Sky

Those white women whose superiority encircled them like an aureole, could quieten any raucous gathering by just placing a finger to a lip.

2004, Andrea Levy, chapter 4, in Small Island‎, London: Review, page 69

It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard […]

1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four‎, Part One, Chapter 1

The dust of the road and his long, wiry hair made aureoles of red about him in the westering light […]

1972, Ursula K. Le Guin, chapter 6, in The Farthest Shore, Atheneum Books

Cleavage and folds are imprinted are overprinted by the contact metamorphic aureole, indicating that they belong to a pre-intrustive episode of rock deformation and accompanying regional deformation.

1990, Roger Mason, Petrology of the Metamorphic Rocks, Chapter 3: "Metamorphism associated with igneous intrusions"