Water, earth and air

[Linda]

the "overnight" transformation to the statement in your Post #29  is simply amazing.

It is amazing what a Wkipedia page can do, isn't it?

Can we all use the same terminology???

Hmm, not sure I want to go along with that.  My point is precisely that,by the 1400s, the "nebuly line" of heraldry and the "wolkenband" of manuscript illuminations were two distinct things, even though they may have had a common origin in the distant past.  Artists who drew wolkenbands did not think of heraldry, and people who specified nebuly lines in blazons did not think of wolkenbands or boundaries between Earth and Heaven.

By the way, is it known when the term "nebuly line" was first used?  Not the line itself, but the name?

Nebuly (or nebulé) is an adjective, often used in heraldry to describe a wavy line representing clouds, originating in the mid-16th century. It derives from the Middle French nebulé and ultimately from the Latin nebula, meaning "mist" or "cloud," combined with the French adjective suffix -é (from Latin -atus).


Oxford English Dictionary
+2
Key Details:
Meaning: Edged in a deeply wavy line to represent clouds, used in heraldry and architecture.
Earliest Use: The Oxford English Dictionary traces the earliest evidence to around 1530.
Related Forms: Similar to the French nebulé and related to the Latin nebulosus (cloudy, misty).
Heraldry Usage: Describes a heraldic line bounding an ordinary or subordinary.
Architecture Usage: Refers to a molding with an undulating lower edge, often found on Romanesque corbel-tables.

Oxford English Dictionary
+5
nebuly, adj. meanings, etymology and more
What is the etymology of the adjective nebuly? nebuly is a borrowing from Latin, combined with an English element; modelled on a F...

Oxford English Dictionary

I like to think of most of them as mist, or moisture, ie clouds.