- bright
- bright adj1 Bright, brilliant, radiant, luminous, lustrous, effulgent, refulgent, beaming, lambent, lucent, incandescent are comparable when they mean actually or seemingly shining or glowing with light.Bright implies an opposition to dim or dull; it applies chiefly to things that vary in the degree in which they shed light or are pervaded by light, according to circumstances; thus, when used in reference to a fire or burning material (as coals), it suggests a good draft and flames; when used in reference to a day, it implies lack of clouds, fog, smoke, or other obstacles to the passage of sunlight{
a bright sky
}{a bright star
}{a bright sword
}{bright eyes
}{a bright color
}Brilliant (see also INTELLIGENT) implies conspicuous or intense brightness; it also often connotes scintillating or flashing light{a well-cut diamond is the most brilliant of gems
}{the sun is too brilliant for the human eye
}{a brilliant smile
}{Madame Olenska's face grew brilliant with pleasure— Wharton
}{what one saw when one looked about was that brilliant blue world of stinging air and moving cloud— Cather
}Radiant, in contrast with bright and brilliant, stresses the emission or seeming emission of rays of light; it suggests, therefore, a property or power possessed by a thing rather than a quality ascribed to it because of its effect on the vision; thus, a celestial body is properly described as radiant only when it emits rays of light; a planet, no matter how bright it appears to the eye, is preferably described as bright or brilliant because it shines by reflected light{Virtue could see to do what Virtue would by her own radiant light, though sun and moon were in the flat sea sunk— Milton
}The term, however, is sometimes used of anything that seems to give out light in the manner of the sun or a star{in warlike armor drest, golden, all radiant!—Shelley
}Luminous, like radiant, suggests emission of light, but, unlike it, implies the sending forth of steady suffused glowing light; it is applicable to anything that shines by reflected light or that glows in the dark because of some special quality (as of physical state or chemical activity); thus, all celestial bodies are luminous, but only self-luminous bodies (stars in the strict astronomical sense) are also radiant{phosphorus is a luminous substance
}As applied to color or to colored things the term implies more than bright, for it usually suggests a jewellike quality{the luminous green of the emerald
}or iridescence{the blue off Nantucket is not the miracle of luminous, translucent color off Sardinia— Lowes
}As applied to ideas or their expression, the term implies crystallike clearness and the absence of all obscurity{a luminous treatment of a subject
}{a luminous statement— Brougham
}Lustrous is applied only to an object whose surface reflects light; it therefore seldom implies pervading light but, rather, a brilliant or iridescent sheen or gloss{the lustrous brass of a burnished lamp
}{a lustrous enameled surface
}{lustrous satin
}Effulgent and refulgent indicate resplendent or gleaming brilliance, and the latter implies further that the brilliance is reflected, sometimes from an unseen source{effulgent loveliness
}{a chandelier of refulgent crystal
}{in arms they stood of golden panoply, refulgent host— Milton
}{rising moon, fair beaming, and streaming her silver light the boughs amang— Burns
}In its commonest use (as applied to looks or expression) beaming suggests a display of happiness, satisfaction, or benevolence{the beaming eyes of children greeting Santa Claus
}{broad beaming smile— George Eliot
}Lambent is applied to a thing (as a flame or a luminous body) which throws a play of light over an object or surface without rendering it brilliant or lustrous{the lambent flame of genius . . . lights up the universe— Hazlitt
}{lambent lightning-fire— Shelley
}Often lambent suggests the emission of soft gleams of light{kind, quiet, nearsighted eyes, which his round spectacles magnified into lambent moons— Deland
}Lucent is a highly poetical or literary adjective that approaches luminous or, less often, lustrous in its meaning; it is usually applied to something transfigured by light (as from the sun or a fire){the lucent fume of the city's smoke rising up— Mackenzie
}{till every particle glowed . . . and slowly seemed to turn to lucent amber— Gibson
}Incandescent suggests intense glowing brightness of or as if of an intensely heated body{pots incandescent in the kiln
}{an incandescent lamp
}{set thoughts aglowing in incandescent language— Iglesias
}Analogous words: illuminated, illumined, lighted, lightened, enlightened (see ILLUMINATE): flashing, gleaming, glistening, sparkling (see FLASH vb): glowing, flaming (see BLAZE vb)Antonyms: dull: dimContrasted words: dusky, murky, gloomy, *dark, obscure: *colorless, uncolored: *pale, pallid, ashen, livid2 smart, quick-witted, brilliant, clever, *intelligent, knowing, alertAnalogous words: *sharp, keen, acute: *quick, ready, prompt, apt: precocious, advanced (see PREMATURE)Antonyms: dense, dull
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
