the flash of light that accompanies an electric discharge in the atmosphere (or something resembling such a flash); can scintillate for a second or more
abrupt electric discharge from cloud to cloud or from cloud to earth accompanied by the emission of light
belonging to times long past especially of the historical period before the fall of the Western Roman Empire; "ancient history"; "ancient civilizations such as those of the Etruscans and Sumerians"; "ancient Greece"