Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To provide or brighten with light.
- transitive verb To decorate or hang with lights.
- transitive verb To make understandable; clarify.
- transitive verb To enlighten intellectually or spiritually; enable to understand.
- transitive verb To adorn (a page of a book, for example) with ornamental designs, images, or lettering in brilliant colors or precious metals.
- transitive verb To expose to or reveal by radiation.
- noun One who has or professes to have an unusual degree of enlightenment.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To give light to; light up.
- To light up profusely; decorate with many lights, as for festivity, triumph, or homage: as, to
illuminate one's house and grounds; the city was illuminated in honor of the victory. - To enlighten; inform; impart intellectual or moral light to.
- To throw light upon; make luminous or clear; illustrate or elucidate.
- To decorate in color by hand; adorn with pictures, ornamental letters, designs, etc., in colors, gold, silver, etc., in flat tints, especially without shading, or with merely conventional shading: as, the illuminated missals or manuscripts of the middle ages.
- To display a profusion of lights, in order to express joy, triumph, etc.
- Enlightened; illuminated.
- Decorated with or as with colored pictures.
- noun One who makes pretension to extraordinary light and knowledge. See
illuminati .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- intransitive verb To light up in token or rejoicing.
- transitive verb To make light; to throw light on; to supply with light, literally or figuratively; to brighten.
- transitive verb To light up; to decorate with artificial lights, as a building or city, in token of rejoicing or respect.
- transitive verb To adorn, as a book or page with borders, initial letters, or miniature pictures in colors and gold, as was done in manuscripts of the Middle Ages.
- transitive verb To make plain or clear; to dispel the obscurity to by knowledge or reason; to explain; to elucidate.
- adjective Enlightened.
- noun One who is enlightened; esp., a pretender to extraordinary light and knowledge.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive to
shine light on something - verb transitive to
decorate something with lights - verb transitive to
clarify or make somethingunderstandable - verb transitive to decorate the
page of amanuscript book withornamental designs - verb transitive, figuratively To make
spectacular - verb intransitive to
glow - verb intransitive to be
exposed to light - noun Someone thought to have an unusual degree of
enlightenment .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb add embellishments and paintings to (medieval manuscripts)
- verb make free from confusion or ambiguity; make clear
- verb make lighter or brighter
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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He continues by breaking down UxD, examining how each element implied in the title illuminate his hypothesis - that the ephemeral and insubstantial
Comments at Boxes and Arrows Tayfun CAKIR 2010
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What this article has tried to illuminate is a dual condition in which psychology — in a piecemeal way in the course of the early part of the nineteenth century — is emerging as an empirical science for the study of the individual mind, but is also at this point becoming a new forum for a humanist metaphysics of the individual.
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"The average person sees more news in a day than they saw in a year 10 years ago," says Richard Buck, CEO and co-founder at Eluma (a variation of the word illuminate), which offers a new personal web organizer to handle the growing problem of information overload.
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It does not seek to "illuminate" the frauds or the problems that arise from endemic mortgage fraud.
William K. Black: Let's Set the Record Straight on Bank of America: Open the Books! William K. Black 2010
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This problem is typically ignored -- at least by the financial sector and the mainstream media -- so we did "illuminate" the problem and the cause of action borrowers could bring for "fraud in the inducement."
William K. Black: Let's Set the Record Straight on Bank of America: Open the Books! William K. Black 2010
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It does not seek to "illuminate" the frauds or the problems that arise from endemic mortgage fraud.
William K. Black: Let's Set the Record Straight on Bank of America: Open the Books! William K. Black 2010
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This problem is typically ignored -- at least by the financial sector and the mainstream media -- so we did "illuminate" the problem and the cause of action borrowers could bring for "fraud in the inducement."
William K. Black: Let's Set the Record Straight on Bank of America: Open the Books! William K. Black 2010
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This problem is typically ignored -- at least by the financial sector and the mainstream media -- so we did "illuminate" the problem and the cause of action borrowers could bring for "fraud in the inducement."
William K. Black: Let's Set the Record Straight on Bank of America: Open the Books! William K. Black 2010
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It does not seek to "illuminate" the frauds or the problems that arise from endemic mortgage fraud.
William K. Black: Let's Set the Record Straight on Bank of America: Open the Books! William K. Black 2010
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This problem is typically ignored -- at least by the financial sector and the mainstream media -- so we did "illuminate" the problem and the cause of action borrowers could bring for "fraud in the inducement."
William K. Black: Let's Set the Record Straight on Bank of America: Open the Books! William K. Black 2010
ampdigitl commented on the word illuminate
Spooks has me using this word in a whole new way. Thanks BBC!
February 1, 2009