illumine
/ɪˈlumən/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.61 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "Laſt night of al, when yonder ſtarre that's weſtward from the pole, had made his coarſe to illumine that part of heauen. Where now it burnes, Marcellus and myself, The bell then towling one."
- "[O]ut-flew / Millions of flaming ſwords, drawn from the thighs / Of mighty Cherubim; the ſudden blaze / Far round illumin'd hell: […]"
- "The moon ſhone faintly by intervals, through broken clouds upon the waters, illumining the white foam which burſt around, and enlightening the ſcene ſufficiently to render it viſible."
- "Thou [Krishna, or the sun] art the being to whom heroes pray in peril of war, nor are their supplications vain when thus they pray, whether it be when thou illuminest the eastern region with thy orient light, when in thy meridian splendour, or when thou majestically descendest in the west."
- "The pages which I have the privilege of now introducing to the world, are calculated, I trust, to illumine the dark parts of the field of morals— […]"
- "I am like a happy lover / Who illumines life with dreaming!"
Etymology
From Middle English illuminen (“to light, light up; to shine; (figuratively) to enlighten spiritually; to make illustrious”) [and other forms], from Old French illuminer (“to light up, illuminate; (figuratively) to enlighten”) (modern French illuminer), from Latin illūmināre, the present active infinitive of illūminō (“to light up, illuminate; to brighten; to adorn; to make conspicuous”), from il- (variant of in- (prefix meaning ‘in, within’; intensifying prefix)) + lūminō (“to illuminate; to brighten; (figuratively) to reveal”) (from lūmen (“light; light source; (poetic) brightness; daylight”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“to shine; to see; bright”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs)).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɪˈlumən/
- British English: /ɪˈl(j)uːmɪn/