illumination

American  

[ih-loo-muh-ney-shuhn] / ɪˌlu məˈneɪ ʃən /

noun

illuminations plural

1. an act or instance of illuminating.

2. the fact or condition of being illuminated.

3. a decoration of lights, usually colored lights.

4. Sometimes illuminations. an entertainment, display, or celebration using lights as a major feature or decoration.

5. intellectual or spiritual enlightenment.

   Synonyms:

   wisdom, insight, revelation, knowledge

6. Also called illuminance.  Also called intensity of illumination.  Optics. the intensity of light falling at a given place on a lighted surface; the luminous flux incident per unit area, expressed in lumens per unit of area.

7. a supply of light.

   a source of illumination.

8. decoration of a manuscript or book with a painted design in color, gold, etc.

9. a design used in such decoration.

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illumination British  

/ ɪˌluːmɪˈneɪʃən /

noun

1. the act of illuminating or the state of being illuminated

2. a source of light

3. (often plural) a light or lights, esp coloured lights, used as decoration in streets, parks, etc

4. spiritual or intellectual enlightenment; insight or understanding

5. the act of making understood; clarification

6. decoration in colours, gold, or silver used on some manuscripts or printed works

7. physics another name (not in technical usage) for illuminance

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• nonillumination
  noun
• preillumination
  noun
• reillumination
  noun
• illuminational
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• illuminations
  plural

Etymology

Origin of illumination

First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Medieval Latin illūminātiōn-, stem of illūminātiō “spiritual enlightenment,” from Latin: “illustriousness, glory”; see illuminate ( def. ), -ion ( def. )

Explanation

Illumination is light. Kids up past their bedtimes have been known to read entire books under their covers using only the illumination from a flashlight. Use the noun illumination to talk about light, like the illumination of the moon on the surface of a lake. Illumination can also refer to an understanding or a spiritual awareness, like when a mystery of your faith suddenly makes sense to you. The Latin root is illuminationem, "throw into light" — you can picture the light bulb over a person's head in a cartoon to remember the various meaning of illumination.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

illumination illuminations

The telescope would allow wide area observations of the lunar surface during strong solar flares, when the Sun provides more intense X-ray illumination.

From Science Daily ● Jun. 6, 2026

Actually, the fineness of the design is probably best appreciated at night, with its full plumage of illumination switched on.

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 16, 2026

Even Apollo astronauts didn't see the Orientale basin completely because of their orbit and illumination conditions.

From BBC ● Apr. 5, 2026

Additional lenses then organize the beams into a structured grid of square illumination areas at the receiving surface.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 2, 2026

It was a square mile of illumination, big enough to be seen out in space.

From "The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury

Signer John Adams hoped that future generations would celebrate America’s birthday with “bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026

Marine life that most people never see floated into view, including delicate comb jellies with pulsing fairy-light illuminations along their sides.

From Barron's ● Jan. 26, 2026

Or, to paraphrase a Virginia Woolf line from “To the Lighthouse” that Rhys invoked earlier: What gets us through are “little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2025

When chief engineer Brian Fraser urged the crew to cut back on the illuminations, the ship's radio officer wrote him a cheeky reply - in rhyme.

From BBC ● Nov. 17, 2024

For many visitors these nightly illuminations were their first encounter with electricity.

From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson

Related Words

• brightness