incandescent
Americanadjective
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(of light) produced by incandescence.
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glowing or white with heat.
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intensely bright; brilliant.
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brilliant; masterly; extraordinarily lucid.
an incandescent masterpiece; incandescent wit.
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aglow with ardor, purpose, etc..
the incandescent vitality of youth.
adjective
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emitting light as a result of being heated to a high temperature; red-hot or white-hot
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informal extremely angry; raging
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of incandescent
1785–95; < Latin incandēscent- (stem of incandēscēns ), present participle of incandēscere to glow. See in- 2, candescent
Explanation
When heated, coals become incandescent, which means that they glow red-hot. You could also describe a brilliant and moving novel as incandescent. Incandescent, like the word candle, has its origins in the Latin word candere meaning "to glow or shine." Combined with the suffix in meaning "within," its meaning can be easily pulled from the combination of its root words: "to glow or shine from within." Fire crackers are incandescent because they give off brilliant lights when heated, but look up at a blazing fireworks display, and you'll find it's quite moving, or incandescent with intensity and brilliance.
Vocabulary lists containing incandescent
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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This Week in Words: September 10 - 16, 2017
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Unit 4: Powerful Openings
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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.
Drawing boldly from her own life and the loss of a cherished friend, the best-selling author delivers a spare, witty and incandescent story about family trauma and the mysteries of memory.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 8, 2026
“Another Dimension” is his answer to the years of rejection, pain and incandescent ire, but transmuted into a vibrant, avant-garde, genre-defying gaping wound found within 11 tight tracks.
From Salon • Jun. 5, 2026
When it comes to Spain, though, Trump appears particularly incandescent.
From BBC • Apr. 24, 2026
It is the incandescent poems of his tortured and unsettled youth that still dazzle.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 20, 2026
When I greet a friend, I am seeing her in reflected visible light, generated by the Sun, say, or by an incandescent lamp.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
