neonn.adj.

1898 W. Ramsay & M. W. Travers in Proc. Royal Soc. 63 438 The density of this gas, which we propose to name ‘neon’ (new) was next determined.

1905 Chem. News 5 May 204/1 A fair quantity of the mixture of neon and helium was prepared by liquefying air.

1935 Industr. & Engin. Chem. Jan. 116/1 Neon is characterized by its high electrical conductivity and light-emissive powers when an electrical current is discharged through it.

1961 Observer 19 Feb. 5/2 The new ‘laser’, as it is called, uses a mixture of helium and neon gas to produce a continuous beam of infra-red radiation.

1966 F. A. Cotton & G. Wilkinson Adv. Inorg. Chem. (ed. 2) xxiii. 598 Helium, neon and argon have so far not been brought into chemical combination..and it seems unlikely that they are capable of reaction.

1987 R. A. Thompson & L. S. Thompson Egoshell ii. vi. 184 Three basic gases comprise 99.9 percent of earth's total atmosphere, while the remaining 0.1 percent divides into 0.03 percent carbon dioxide and 0.07 percent trace amounts of neon, helium, methane, krypton, hydrogen, nitric acid, and xenon.

1990 Sciences Jan. 27/2 A tube of neon gas is ionized when an electric current is sent through it, and as the dislodged electrons are recaptured by the neon atoms, the atoms emit a deep red glow.

1934 S. Gold Neon 18 Whilst the customer may want his name expressed in neon and surrounded by a border, it is up to the sign-man to supply it with ‘finish’.

1947 K. Patchen See you in Morning 56 They were sipping malteds beside..a drive-in, their hamburgers uncooking under the red flutter of neons.

1958 Spectator 30 May 687/3 The dialogue [of a play] is stuffed as full of metaphors as a copywriter's prose and Tony Richardson's production sets up each phrase in neon.

1969 ‘A. Glyn’ Dragon Variation v. 162 To the left it was the glare of the rest of the Strip, the great river of neon, the jazziest in the world.

1974 R. Butler Buffalo Hook iii. 26 The neons were flashing over the plushy restaurants.

1993 Day (New London, Connecticut) 27 Jan. a2/5 [He] uses a wide range of media in his art, including paper, video, neon, steel and holography.

1934 Los Angeles Times 9 Oct. ii. 8 Jodelle's daring combination of black with civil war days sash and bow of neon blue velvet.

1941 N.Y. Times 16 Oct. 8 (advt.) Neutral or neon wool dresses to illuminate dark coats.

1961 Webster's 3rd New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. (at cited word) Neon..of, relating to, or resembling the light of neon lamps.

1972 C. Buchanan Maiden ii. 19 He mashed her hand a final time and bounded off into the neon night.

1984 M. Amis Money 93 Just then, a middle-aged, blow-dried villain..urged a neon redhead past our table.

1994 Clothes Show Mag. May 23/2 To go with this season's sporty styles, duffle bags and rucksacks in primary or neon colours.

1995 GQ Jan. 92/3 The Tallinn chief of police is dancing Travolta-style on the neon dance floor, misty with dry ice.

2001 Guardian 13 Apr. ii. 2/2 Neil and I are rounded on by a bouncer in a neon vest known as a ‘heritage warden’.

1959 Amer. Q. 11 20 At the very moment when Americans..felt the presence on their shores of a beacon of liberty for all the world, many creative minds in Europe saw in that light the prototype of the neon advertisement.

1993 D. C. Reece Rich Broth i. 7 Signs including a flashing neon advertisement for a soft drink.

1908 Proc. Royal Soc. A. 81 431 The neon glow was but feebly affected by the magnetic field.

1945 A. Huxley Time must have Stop (new ed.) xxx. 276 The neon glow from those technological New Jerusalems beyond the horizons of the next revolution.

1985 J. Shirley in B. Sterling Mirrorshades (1986) 165 The various smokes of the place warping the neon glow, filtering and smearing the colors of signs.

1937 R. Chandler in Black Mask Jan. 19/1 The call letters of the station revolved in neon letters.

1995 Smash Hits 29 Mar. 5/1 Behind them stands a billboard poster emblazoned with The Ant & Dec Show logo in huge, neon letters.

1913 Trans. Illuminating Engin. Soc. (U.S.) 371 (heading) Neon lighting.

1933 Times 5 Dec. (Electricity Supply Number) p. xxiii/7 Neon lighting can be seen in almost every town of any size in the country.

2000 S. Poole Trigger Happy iv. 88 Neon lighting is gaudy and luminous in a way that computer graphics can easily imitate.

1959 New Statesman 28 Feb. 302/3 Living in a neon-world of semi-legality, its leadership organises conferences and ‘stay-at-homes’ as if keeping the government informed about its intentions was a rule in the revolutionary game.

1986 L. Rosenberg Fire Music ii. 46 He stares into the street and his homesick thought drums like a wave in that sea of faith lit up above the ghostly, neon world.

1962 ‘K. Orvis’ Damned & Destroyed xxvii. 206 The city's wide, neon-blazing Sunset Strip.

2002 San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News (Nexis) 28 Apr. a1 More than 70,000 riders attending the festival overwhelmed the garish, neon-blazing hamlet of 8,000 residents.

1938 Chicago Tribune 7 Feb. 18 (advt.) Pure dye crepes in over seventy-five colors that range from..ivory and cornsilk yellow to neon bright colors.

1958 Spectator 25 July 133/3 A neon-bright café.

1985 N.Y. Times 6 Aug. iii. 10/2 Mr. Sprouse's sketches of..tailored coats in neon bright colors.

1946 Nature 21 Sept. 414/1 The rectified signal from the second detector was amplified by a neon-coupled two-stage d.c. amplifier.

1935 S. C. Miller & D. G. Fink Neon Signs iii. 37 (caption) Relative light energy from a neon-filled tube.

1966 McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. (rev. ed.) IX. 36/1 A very small wattage produces visible light in neon-filled glow lamps.

1990 L.A. Style Mar. 38/3 Locals will have fun picking out the L.A. locations, especially a neon-filled, funk-pumping black club.

1936 C. Rouse Old Towns i. 21 Inside, a neon-lighted glass sign directs you to ‘Ye olde Beamed Tudor Cocktail Bar’.

1954 Encounter Feb. 37/2 It begins, in the West, with the neon-lighted brilliance of the Kurfürstendamm.

1998 D. Wakoski Argonaut Rose 42 Like a neon-lighted casino in Las Vegas, a building of light rising out of her own desert.

1947 Life 17 Nov. 8/2 Recently the U.S. citizen..had a 2¢ shoeshine from a bootblack, picked up a 13¢ package of U.S. cigarets and strolled down the neon-lit Jirón de la Unióne.

1958 Spectator 14 Feb. 197/1 The actress, the best-selling author, or the famous film star who..remain tragically single, trapped in their own accursed, neon-lit achievement.

1972 R. Busby Reasonable Man iii. 24 They left the car outside the store and went..into the brash, neon-lit interior.

1991 J. Diski Happily ever After ix. 108 Learning the give and take of a one-to-one relationship must be important, Jock told himself, even while he winced at the thought which had come into his head with neon-lit quotation marks.

1936 W. T. Innes in Aquarium 5 135/2 Regarding the Neon fishes... Four of these fishes were dead when the airship arrived... The red coloring from the fishes had made bright red blotches on the paper.

1990 S. Dybek Coast of Chicago 153 A great blue neon fish leapt in the storefront window.

1911 Chem. Abstr. 5 1024 In contradistinction to the Hg vapor lamp the neon lamp's light is rich in red rays.

1940 L. MacNeice Last Ditch 15 And the neon-lamps of London Stain the canals of night.

1977 M. Clifford Encycl. Home Wiring & Electricity ii. 23 A test light is simply a neon lamp designed to operate at 115 volts AC.

1996 A. Ghosh Calcutta Chromosome (1997) xliii. 295 It was raining hard... The neon lamps on Robinson Street were glowing fuzzily greenish.

1913 Trans. Illum. Engin. Soc. (U.S.) 376 The neon light is physiologically excellent on account of its dull luminescence.

1958 J. Betjeman Coll. Poems 231 So up I rose and went along To that old village alehouse where In neon lights is written ‘Bear’.

1997 Spirit June 17/2 The neon lights of Las Vegas called out across the desert for miles.

1927 Advertising & Selling 28 Dec. 34/3 Neon signs overcome the handicap of high first cost by lowered current consumption.

1934 Times 19 Feb. 13/5 In two of our quiet residential streets flaring neon signs have been put up to announce that the houses on which they are placed are hotels.

1958 J. Betjeman Coll. Poems 232 The neon sign's a work of art and visible for miles.

1986 J. Hobhouse November 153 The neon sign of a Greek restaurant flashed erratically through the trees of the garden square.

1939 ‘J. Struther’ Mrs. Miniver in Times 2 Aug. 15/7 The town seemed almost unrecognizable—a place of angular lettering and neon strips.

1990 M. Dibdin Vendetta (1991) 117 Two bare neon strips suspended by chains from the ceiling dispensed a frigid, even glare.

1936 W. T. Innes in Aquarium 5 82/2 The recent feat of bringing some wonderful new Characins, Neon Tetras (Hyphessobrycon innesi Myers), from Germany to the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago..in less than 60 hours.

1936 W. T. Innes in Aquarium 5 136/2 The very good descriptive popular name for the fish, ‘Neon Tetra’ or ‘Neontet’ was originated by M. Lepaut, of Paris.

1962 Listener 22 Nov. 852/2 One [sc. tropical fish] which seemed to be lit up by a greenish blue light running from his head to his tail—this was a neon tetra.

2000 C. Tudge Variety of Life ii. xv. 383 The Characiformes are another huge group of around 1000 mainly freshwater species, including piranhas, neon tetras, freshwater hatchetfish, [etc.].

1900 Proc. Royal Soc. 67 332 The colour of a neon-tube is extremely brilliant and of an orange-pink hue.

1936 Discovery Nov. 364/2 The manufacture, erection, and maintenance of all neon tubes for advertising and display purposes.

1991–2 City & Country Home Winter 84/2 A light trough around the perimeter of the dining room ceiling conceals two neon tubes..operated on separate dimmers.

1947 N. Algren (title) The neon wilderness.

1953 Encounter Nov. 8/1 The neon wilderness of noise and music, fun and sin, boredom and high, desperate spirits.

1996 D. Abshire Putting America's House in Order 3 An outbreak of crime, recurring drug abuse, the ravages of urban decay and violence, and scavenging homelessness, which have created another neon wilderness.