ray

ray, beam are comparable when they denote a shaft of light. This conception of light as a shaft is fixed in our language but is not always in keeping with modern scientific views of the nature of light.

Ray suggests emanation from a center or point in the manner of the spokes of a wheel; its typical application is to one of the apparently thin lines of light that seem to extend from a radiant body (as the sun or a candle) or that are flashed from a reflective surface (as of steel or a mirror glittering in the sun)

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the more numerous the facets of a diamond the more numerous the rays of light it reflects

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Beam implies not a line but a long bar; it suggests therefore a bar made up of a bundle of rays of light; thus, a beam of white light is split by a prism into rays of light of the various colors of the spectrum

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the beam of an automobile headlight

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a searchlight throws a narrow beam

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where a sunbeam enters, every particle of dust becomes visible— Ruskin

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how far that little candle throws his beamsl— Shak.

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A small beam is sometimes called a ray

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a tiny hole in the window shade admitted a ray of sunlight into the room

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