lucida

[loo-si-duh]

noun

Astronomy.

plural

lucidae 

1. the brightest star in a constellation.

Word History and Origins

Origin of lucida¹

First recorded in 1720–30; from New Latin, special use of Latin lūcida (stella) “bright (star),” feminine of lūcidus “bright, shining, lucid”; low ³

Example Sentences

The next slide is a quotation by Roland Barthes about his own mother in “Camera Lucida”: “I dream about her, I do not dream her. And confronted with the photograph, as in the dream, it is the same effort, the same Sisyphean labor: to reascend, straining toward the essence, to climb back down without having seen it, and to begin all over again.”

Read more on Los Angeles Times

The visual trick may have been created by the artist’s use of a common optical viewing aid called a camera lucida.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Some think he employed a camera lucida’s lens to render sitters as accurately as possible, which makes two details surprising.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Unprompted, she tells me she’s been meaning to read “Camera Lucida,” a book on photography by the French writer Roland Barthes that I mentioned to her in passing.

Read more on New York Times

At some point in the past year, I bought a used copy of “Camera Lucida.”

Read more on New York Times