Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To give forth flashes of light; sparkle and glitter.
  • intransitive verb To exhibit sparkling virtuosity.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To emit vivid flashes of light; flash; lighten; gleam.
  • Synonyms Sparkle, Scintillate, etc. See glare.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To glitter in flashes; to flash.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To give off light; to reflect in flashes; to sparkle.
  • verb To exhibit brilliant technique or style.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb reflect brightly
  • verb be lively or brilliant or exhibit virtuosity

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin coruscāre, coruscāt-, to flash.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From the Latin coruscō ("I flash").

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Examples

  • Oh, I could describe its size, feeling, weight but never its colour, its delicate shades and nuances, the way light would coruscate over the ripe contours of a dew-laden bunch of grapes.

    What Visions In The Dark Of Light: By Bob Lock | SciFi UK Review 2008

  • Oh, I could describe its size, feeling, weight but never its colour, its delicate shades and nuances, the way light would coruscate over the ripe contours of a dew-laden bunch of grapes.

    SciFi UK Review | Archive | February 2008

  • "" Now we're getting all the calls, '' Tracey laughs, waving her hands and making her huge diamond wedding ring coruscate.

    Ready For His Close-Up 2008

  • I say this because these are attributes that glitter and coruscate throughout The Grounds, his second novel.

    Cormac Millar, The Grounds (Penguin, 2006) Miglior acque 2006

  • I say this because these are attributes that glitter and coruscate throughout The Grounds, his second novel.

    Archive 2006-03-01 Miglior acque 2006

  • Indeed, all sides of the political multi-spectrum flicker and coruscate here.

    Dawg's Blawg 2005

  • Indeed, all sides of the political multi-spectrum flicker and coruscate here.

    Archive 2005-10-01 2005

  • A welling, rising, towering rage roared straight up out of the core of Cynthia Maidstone, filling her with a cold, crackling energy so intense she felt that she could point her fingers and chill lighting would coruscate from their tips.

    Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine 2004

  • The high celing of clouds coruscate with lightning.

    nessus Diary Entry nessus 2004

  • A welling, rising, towering rage roared straight up out of the core of Cynthia Maidstone, filling her with a cold, crackling energy so intense she felt that she could point her fingers and chill lighting would coruscate from their tips.

    Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine 2004

Comments

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  • what the northern lights do

    December 20, 2006

  • "The result of which, apart from ubiquitous draughts, was sudden and intermittent bursts of sunshine, a dazzling and changeable light that made it almost impossible to see the tea-drinkers, so that when they were installed there, at tables crowded pair after pair the whole way along the narrow gully, shimmering and sparkling with every movement they made in drinking their tea or in greeting one another, it resembled a giant fish-tank or bow-net in which a fisherman has collected all his glittering catch, which, half out of water and bathed in sunlight, coruscate before one's eyes in an ever-changing iridescence."

    -- Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Revised by D.J. Enright, p 536 of the Modern Library paperback edition

    April 26, 2008

  • Does Corsica coruscate?

    August 14, 2008

  • I'm sure she does at sunset. Certainly the sea around her does.

    August 14, 2008

  • "coruscating trifles"

    March 1, 2011

  • My favourite word. For some reason it reminds me of red, pulsing light more than any other colour. It is a regal word, ebullient and wet with juice.

    May 25, 2011

  • Clever people—quick studies—are often like this. They have properly intellectual gifts, but they lack the patience for attention’s long, slow gaze (on which see below), and so their intellectual life coruscates, sparking here and there like a firefly on the porch, but it illuminate nothing for long

    April 17, 2018

  • Clever people—quick studies—are often like this. They have properly intellectual gifts, but they lack the patience for attention’s long, slow gaze (on which see below), and so their intellectual life coruscates, sparking here and there like a firefly on the porch, but illuminating nothing for long

    April 17, 2018