Atrium vs. Skylight — What's the Difference?

An open-roofed entrance hall or central court in an ancient Roman house.

A skylight (sometimes called a rooflight) is a light-transmitting structure or window, usually made of transparent or transluscent glass, that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting and ventilation purposes.

Each of the two upper cavities of the heart from which blood is passed to the ventricles. The right atrium receives deoxygenated blood from the veins of the body, the left atrium oxygenated blood from the pulmonary vein.

An overhead window, as in a roof, admitting daylight.

A usually skylit central area, often containing plants, in some modern buildings, especially of a public or commercial nature.

Light from the sky.

The open area in the center of an ancient Roman house.

A hole in the congealed surface of a lava flow, through which flowing lava can be seen.

The forecourt of a building, such as an early Christian church, enclosed on three or four sides with porticoes.

(architecture) A window, dome, or opening in the roof or ceiling, to admit natural light.

(Anatomy) A body cavity or chamber, especially either of the upper chambers of the heart that receives blood from the veins and forces it into a ventricle. Also called auricle.

(physics) Diffuse sky radiation—solar radiation reaching the earth's surface after having been scattered from the direct solar beam by molecules or suspensoids in the atmosphere.

(architecture) A central room or space in ancient Roman homes, open to the sky in the middle; a similar space in other buildings.

(volcanology) A hole in the upper part of a lava tube, yielding a view of the lava within.

(architecture) A square hall lit by daylight from above, into which rooms open at one or more levels.

A region of flat, thin ice allowing a submarine to surface.

(anatomy) A cavity, entrance, or passage.

A window placed in the roof of a building, in the ceiling of a room, or in the deck of a ship, for the admission of light from above.

(biology) Any enclosed body cavity or chamber.

A window in a roof to admit daylight

(anatomy) An upper chamber of the heart that receives blood from the veins and forces it into a ventricle. In higher vertebrates, the right atrium receives blood from the superior vena cava and inferior vena cava, and the left atrium receives blood from the left and right pulmonary veins.

(anatomy) A microscopic air sac within a pulmonary alveolus.

(palynology) A cavity inside a porate aperture of a pollen grain formed by the separation of the sexine and nexine layers, widening toward the interior of the grain.

A square hall lighted from above, into which rooms open at one or more levels.

The main part of either auricle of the heart as distinct from the auricular appendix. Also, the whole articular portion of the heart.

A cavity in ascidians into which the intestine and generative ducts open, and which also receives the water from the gills. See Ascidioidea.

A cavity, entrance, or passage; as, the atrium, or atrial cavity, in the body wall of the amphioxus; an atrium of the infundibula of the lungs, etc.

Any chamber that is connected to other chambers or passageways (especially one of the two upper chambers of the heart)

The central area in a building; open to the sky