when I featured moonglade, it was with this quote:

"Then there are the Twin Sailors. They don't live anywhere, they sail all the time, but they often come ashore to talk to me. They are a pair of jolly tars and they have seen everything in the world. . .and more than what is in the world. Do you know what happened to the youngest Twin Sailor once? He was sailing and he sailed right into a moonglade. A moonglade is the track the full moon makes on the water when it is rising from the sea, you know, teacher. Well, the youngest Twin Sailor sailed along the moonglade till he came right up to the moon, and there was a little golden door in the moon and he opened it and sailed right through. He had some wonderful adventures in the moon but it would make this letter too long to tell them." - L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

I mention this only because it suggests a narrower view of the word; i.e., a full moon rising from the sea.

anyway, I'd had the word kumatage in my notes, but didn't mention it because I'd found it only in an online reference to the 1854 edition of The American Practical Navigator, by Nathaniel Bowditch(!). The book itself is available online, but in a newer edition, which doesn't contain kumatage.

Now, in response to moonglade, I got this reply:

"A poeticism for sure. The more scientific term for moon light shining on water: kumatage."

Well, now I had to do something. I tracked down the 1854 edition of The American Practical Navigator, and sure enough kumatage was in the glossary (but seemingly unused in the text), defined thusly: a bright appearance in the horizon, under the sun or moon, arising from the reflected light of those bodies from the small rippling waves on the surface of the water -- slightly broader here; i.e., including reflection of sun.

I wish I'd found some etymology for kumatage... but the story doesn't end here:

the worthless word for the day is: cumatic

(from Gr. kumat, wave; after L. cumatilis)
[obs.] sea-colored, blue

at last, a clue to the etymology of kumatage!


For the literalists who don't get the 'glade' in moonglade, I think this is helpful, from AHD: Middle English, perhaps from glad, bright and shining.