arcoíris

Tuesday around dinner time, the wind picked up, dark storm clouds blew in, a few raindrops falling, and the sun was still shining. The sky was dramatic with its dark, intense colors illuminated by the sun. It was a perfect combination for a rainbow. 

My intuition was spot on. A rainbow arched over the neighborhood. Looking at it from the left it was a single rainbow but as I looked toward the right, there was another colorful arc - a double rainbow!

I don't know how or why this happened but as I looked at the sky, the Spanish word for rainbow popped into my head. Arcoíris. Such a pretty word and so descriptive of its subject.

It's a compound word meaning "rainbow" and combines arco ("arch," from Latin arcus) and iris ("rainbow" or "Iris," from Greek mythology). The name literally translates to "arch of Iris" or "rainbow arch," referring to the Greek goddess Iris, the messenger of the gods who traveled along rainbows.