logo       

refulgence: msg#00007

culture.language.word-of-the-day

Subject: refulgence

****************************************************************
Enjoy a 14-day free preview of our growing collection of
indispensable references at Merriam-WebsterUnabridged!
http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/unabridged_sub.pl?refr=U_wod
****************************************************************

The Word of the Day for October 8 is:

refulgence \rih-FULL-junss\ noun
: a radiant or resplendent quality or state : brilliance

Example sentence:
Cervantes' Don Quixote compares his beloved's hair to "threads of the
brightest gold of Araby, whose refulgence dimmed the sun himself."

Did you know?
"The full bow of the crescent moon peeps above the plain and shoots its
gleaming arrows far and wide, filling the earth with a faint refulgence, as the
glow of a good man's deeds shines for a while upon his little world after his
sun has set, lighting the fainthearted travellers who follow on towards a
fuller dawn." So British author Sir Henry Rider Haggard described the light of
the moon in _King Solomon's Mines_. Haggard's example reflects both the modern
meaning and the history of "refulgence." That word derives from the Latin
"refulgere," which means "to shine brightly" and which is itself a descendant
of the verb "fulgere," meaning "to shine." By the way, "fulgere" also underlies
"effulgence," a shining synonym of "refulgence."







<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Google Custom Search

News | FAQ | advertise