ILLUMINATE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Illuminate

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/ɪlˈumɪnɪt/ Listen

verb

Illuminate v. t. (past & past part. illuminated; pres. part. illuminating)

To make light; to throw light on; to supply with light, literally or figuratively; to brighten.

To light up; to decorate with artificial lights, as a building or city, in token of rejoicing or respect.

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.

To make plain or clear; to dispel the obscurity to by knowledge or reason; to explain; to elucidate; as, to illuminate a text, a problem, or a duty.

Illuminate v. i. To light up in token or rejoicing.

noun

Illuminate n. One who is enlightened; esp., a pretender to extraordinary light and knowledge.

adjective

Illuminate adj. Enlightened.

See images of 'Illuminate'

Etymology of 'Illuminate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Illuminate" Quotes from Famous Books

... over-hastily, the liberty to say: "Strange, is it not, to be on the point of fighting for one's existence; overwhelmed with so many businesses; and disposed to go into verse in addition! CONCEIVE that form of mind; it would illuminate something of Friedrich's character: I cannot yet rightly understand such an aspect of structure, and know not what to say of ...

— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great--Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.--1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... brief and seizing. Talk should proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It should keep close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and businesses of men, at the level where history, fiction and experience intersect and illuminate each other. I am I, and You are You, with all my heart; but conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the spirit housed in the live body, and the very clothes uttering voices ...

— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... rice-wine, incense, vases of red lacquer containing flowers, a harp and flute, and a needle with five eyes, threaded with threads of five different colors. Black-lacquered oil-lamps were placed beside the tables, to illuminate the feast. In another part of the grounds a tub of water was so placed as to reflect the light of the Tanabata-stars; and the ladies of the Imperial Household attempted to thread a needle by the reflection. ...

— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... which is natural. But the author cannot stay his hand: this largest of the English lakes is also alive with "golden gondolas," which are rarer objects. In one of the odd little flashes of self-criticism which illuminate the book Lothair says of a certain northern garden, with its fanes and its fountains, its glittering statues and its Babylonian terraces, that there ...

— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... his big hand swiftly, and felt it caught in a strong bony grip. And as their hands met Monteith's stern face suddenly broke out into an unexpected smile, a smile so brilliant and kindly that the boy felt it illuminate his whole being, and from that moment he was ...

— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

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