STEVE.
An aurora-like light found in southern Canada (consistently lower latitude, unlike the aurora borealis which is generally high latitude), composed of a glowing purple ribbon of light, with green spikes coming off obliquely parallel to each other, moving at about 6.5 km/s East to West. Presumably occurs in the southern hemisphere as well.
Meaning & usage
An aurora-like light found in southern Canada (consistently lower latitude, unlike the aurora borealis which is generally high latitude), composed of a glowing purple ribbon of light, with green spikes coming off obliquely parallel to each other, moving at about 6.5 km/s East to West. Presumably occurs in the southern hemisphere as well.
Where this word comes from
(2016) Back-formation from Steve (nickname) given to this aurora-like light. Acronym of strong thermal emission velocity enhancement. The nickname "Steve" resulted from a meeting between citizen scientists and researchers from the University of Calgary at a bar, to discuss the purple light. 'Steve' is the namesake of a cartoon character from the 2006 animated film "Over the Hedge", where cartoon animals try to peek over a suburban hedge. The backronym resulted from researchers creating a meaning to the nickname "Steve", keeping the original nickname for the formal name.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.