illumine
Americanverb (used with or without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
- illuminable adjective
- self-illumined adjective
Etymology
Origin of illumine
1300–50; Middle English illuminen < Latin illūmināre to light up, equivalent to il- il- 1 + lūmin- (stem of lūmen ) light + -ā- thematic vowel + -re infinitive suffix
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“She is the one of course that I am trying to get. … To mark her off, to describe, to illumine, to celebrate, to get rid of her.”
From Los Angeles Times • May 14, 2024
Those “if”s, those two counterfactuals, help illumine the precise borders of the crime.
From The New Yorker • Apr. 17, 2019
Adjectives are where the elves of language both cheat and illumine reality.
From Slate • Aug. 6, 2014
One 1721 image here shows a providential eye peering through the clouds of a storm, beams of light streaming downward to illumine an embattled ship.
From New York Times • Aug. 18, 2010
A sun that was to illumine a world to come.
From "Johnny Tremain" by Esther Hoskins Forbes
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
