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1944, Elizabeth Enright, Then There Were Five, Farrar & Rinehart, page 80:
“Gee,” whispered Oliver. He sat there staring. “A luna! I never thought I’d see a real luna!”
1969, Sterling North, “An Introduction to Butterflies and Moths”, in Boys’ Life, May 1969 issue, Boy Scouts of America, page 64:
On the previous evening we had discovered with delight a luna with the fabulous moons, one on each pale green wing.
2010, Sally Roth (contributor), in Judy Pray (compiler), Garden Wisdom & Know-How: Everything You Need to Know to Plant, Grow, and Harvest, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, page 348:
Spray BT on your young oak to protect against gypsy moths, and you wipe out future lunas, cecropias, and everything else on the leaves, along with the pests.
1907 May, “Dominicanus”, “The Rosary and the Blessed Sacrament”, in the Dominican Friars, The Rosary Magazine, Volume 30, Number 5, page 494:
The Bread of Angels is first taken from the tabernacle, where it rests in the luna, and placed upon the altar, covered with a corporal. After genuflecting, the priest puts the luna containing the Blessed Sacrament on its throne—the monstrance—and elevates it
1917, John F. Sullivan, The Externals of the Catholic Church, BiblioLife, LLC, published 2009, →ISBN, pages 115–116:
This receptacle is called a “luna” or “lunula” (a moon, or a little moon), and has glass on either side, so that the Host may be seen when enclosed therein. […] ¶ […] ¶ The ciborium, the pyx and luna of the ostensorium are blessed with a simpler formula than that used for the chalice, and […] ¶ […] ¶ The chalice, the paten, the luna and the pyx are sacred things, true sacramentals, and are worthy of deepest reverence; for […]
2007, John Trigilio, Kenneth Brighenti, The Catholicism Answer Book: The 300 Most Frequently Asked Questions, Sourcebooks, Inc., →ISBN, page 156:
The luna, which is a piece of glass in the shape of a moon, contains the Blessed Sacrament, previously consecrated. The luna is then placed in the middle of the sunburst of the monstrance.
1922 June, U. G. Murphy, “The Japanese Problem in Hawaii: How the Task of Christianizing and Americanizing the Oriental is Progressing”, in The Friend, volume 91, number 6, page 130:
There are several reasons why the Hawaiian-born Japanese boys and girls do not take kindly to plantation labor, but one of the chief reasons is the objection to the kind of lunas who oversee the work of the laborers.
[…] haoles could not visualize Chinese or Japanese in positions of authority. And from sad experience, the great plantation owners had discovered that the Americans they could get to serve as lunas were positively no good. Capable Americans expected office jobs and incapable ones were unable to control the Oriental […]
2000, Sally Engle Merry, Colonizing Hawai'i: the cultural power of law, page 321:
After the day was over I went to the luna to count my day but he would not. Then I went to him the second time and he said he would not put it down.
Capital punishment was outlawed by the government but some plantation managers and luna still delivered lashings and other forms of abuse.
Usage notes
This noun, though inflected as an English word (singular luna, plural lunas), is frequently italicized as a loanword.
References
^ “luna” in Don S. Armentrout and Robert Boak Slocum (editors), An Episcopal Dictionary of the Church: A User-Friendly Reference for Episcopalians, Church Publishing, Inc. (2000), →ISBN.
^ 1986, Mary Kawena Pukui, Samuel H. Elbert, Hawaiian dictionary: Hawaiian-English, English-Hawaiian, revised and enlarged edition (University of Hawaii Press)
1300s–1310s, Dante Alighieri, “Canto XXXIII”, in Inferno [Hell], lines 22, 25–27; republished as Giorgio Petrocchi, editor, La Commedia secondo l'antica vulgata [The Commedia according to the ancient vulgate], 2nd revised edition, Florence: publ.Le Lettere, 1994:
Breve pertugio dentro da la Muda, […] m’avea mostrato per lo suo forame più lune già, quand’io feci ’l mal sonno che del futuro mi squarciò ’l velame
"A narrow opening in the mew had already shown me many moons through its hole, when I dreamed the evil dream that tore apart the veil of the future for me."
“luna”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
“luna”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
luna in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
the sun, moon, is eclipsed: sol (luna) deficit, obscuratur
the moon waxes, wanes: luna crescit; decrescit, senescit
“luna”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
“luna”, in William Smith, editor (1848), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London: John Murray
“luna”, in William Smith, editor (1854, 1857), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, volume 1 & 2, London: Walton and Maberly
“luna”, in Richard Stillwell et al., editor (1976), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press
“luna”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2024