Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Illuminate   /ɪlˈumɪnɪt/   Listen
Illuminate

verb
(past & past part. illuminated; pres. part. illuminating)
1.
Make lighter or brighter.  Synonyms: illume, illumine, light, light up.
2.
Make free from confusion or ambiguity; make clear.  Synonyms: clear, clear up, crystalise, crystalize, crystallise, crystallize, elucidate, enlighten, shed light on, sort out, straighten out.  "Clear up the question of who is at fault"
3.
Add embellishments and paintings to (medieval manuscripts).






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Illuminate" Quotes from Famous Books



... over-hastily, the liberty to say: "Strange, is it not, to be on the point of fighting for one's existence; overwhelmed with so many businesses; and disposed to go into verse in addition! CONCEIVE that form of mind; it would illuminate something of Friedrich's character: I cannot yet rightly understand such an aspect of structure, and know not what to say of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle

... brief and seizing. Talk should proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It should keep close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and businesses of men, at the level where history, fiction and experience intersect and illuminate each other. I am I, and You are You, with all my heart; but conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the spirit housed in the live body, and the very clothes uttering voices ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... rice-wine, incense, vases of red lacquer containing flowers, a harp and flute, and a needle with five eyes, threaded with threads of five different colors. Black-lacquered oil-lamps were placed beside the tables, to illuminate the feast. In another part of the grounds a tub of water was so placed as to reflect the light of the Tanabata-stars; and the ladies of the Imperial Household attempted to thread a needle by the reflection. ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn

... which is natural. But the author cannot stay his hand: this largest of the English lakes is also alive with "golden gondolas," which are rarer objects. In one of the odd little flashes of self-criticism which illuminate the book Lothair says of a certain northern garden, with its fanes and its fountains, its glittering statues and its Babylonian terraces, that there ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... his big hand swiftly, and felt it caught in a strong bony grip. And as their hands met Monteith's stern face suddenly broke out into an unexpected smile, a smile so brilliant and kindly that the boy felt it illuminate his whole being, and from that moment he was ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith

... be thence gleaned for this Highland feast (the splendour of which induced the Pope's legate to dissent from an opinion which he had hitherto held, that Scotland, namely, was the—the—the latter end of the world)—besides these, might I not illuminate my pages with Taylor the Water Poet's hunting in ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... aiding, comforting, and curing thousands and thousands of human beings: it must be immortal, and communicated to the entire world by generous France—for the man of letters was right, and knew how to illuminate in a word this true simple, and marvellous help in conquering pain: 'IT IS GOING ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue

... this observatory contained a powerful electric light, which at night could illuminate the route of the "Alaska." Seven small boats, of which two were whale-boats, a steam-cutter, six sledges, snow-shoes for each of the crew, four Gatling cannons and thirty guns, with the necessary ammunition, were stored away on board. These preparations were approaching an end, when Mr. Hersebom ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... Interest him in politics. He is a Tory and he loves me. Remind him constantly of the Whig inferno from which we have just emerged. I am sure he would write political pamphlets of incomparable influence. I have never heard Warner talk politics, but I don't doubt that his mind would illuminate that subject as it does everything else it touches. Fill the house with ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... impotent to do the least harm. Roads and bridges, Church matters, repartition of the Land-dues, Army matters,—in fact they are an effective non-haranguing Parliament, to the King's Deputy in every such Province; well calculated to illuminate and forward his subaltern AMTmen and him. Nay, we observe it is oftenest in the way of gifts and solacements that the King articulately communicates with these Committees or their Ritterschafts. Projects for Draining of Bogs, for improved Highways, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... followers that he did not wish to drag them farther at so late an hour, since he could go on alone and inquire if the woman who had been seen were really Grace. But they would not leave him alone in his anxiety, and trudged onward till the lamplight from the town began to illuminate their fronts. At the entrance to the High Street they got fresh scent of the pursued, but coupled with the new condition that the lady in the costume described had been going ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy

... rapidly to search Orme's pockets. There was sufficient light from the lamps of the two cars to illuminate the scene. ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin

... from her fane within the soul Of fire-tongued seers descending, Or from the dream-lit temples of the past With feet immortal wending, Illuminate grief's antre swart and vast With half-veiled face that promises the whole To him who holds her fast, What answer could you give? Sight of one face I crave, One only while I live; Woo elsewhere; for I ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton

... piece of work.... With each new novel the author of 'The Hoosier Schoolmaster' enlarges his audience, and surprises old friends by reserve forces unsuspected. Sterling integrity of character and high moral motives illuminate Dr. Eggleston's fiction, and assure its place in the literature of America which is to stand as a worthy reflex of the best thoughts of this age."—New ...
— A Little Norsk; Or, Ol' Pap's Flaxen • Hamlin Garland

... temple's inauguration. Shuddering with pleasure the light glided and gloated over those exquisite forms, and covered them with timid kisses, profiting by an occasion, alas, rare indeed! The rays scattered through the chamber, disdaining to illuminate golden arms, jewelled clasps, or brazen tripods, all concentrated themselves upon Nyssia, and left all other objects in obscurity. Were we Greeks of the age of Pericles we might at our ease eulogise those beautiful serpentine lines, those ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier

... (according to a direct Scripture) the symbol of his flesh, his mortal humanity while on earth. Every board and bar, every cord and pin, the coverings, the curtains, the blue, the purple and the scarlet color, the golden vessels as well as the furniture, each and all, proclaim him, illustrate and illuminate him in his person, his work, his ...
— Christ, Christianity and the Bible • I. M. Haldeman

... Rolf won't care what the light burns that lights him to independence,—and when you get there you may illuminate with a whole whale if you like. By the way, Rolf, there is a fine water power up yonder, and a saw-mill in good order, they tell me, but a short way from the house. Hugh might learn to manage it, and it would be fine ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... full, but while it waded through the heavy cloud-masses half the world was dark. It would seem that Diana ought to keep her fair, chaste head in nubibus when any of her maidens stand in danger. But she has often been known to suddenly illuminate a dark place, and ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins

... the page returned with a troubled face. This Zygfried did not observe on account of the darkness, for the fire in the stove was too far back to illuminate the room sufficiently. ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... true benefit to oneself and others, the discussion should take place only in the presence of the works themselves. Everything depends on the objects being in view; on whether something absolutely definite is suggested by the word with which one hopes to illuminate the work of art; for, otherwise, nothing is thought of at all. This is why it so often happens that the writer on art dwells merely on generalities, through which, indeed, ideas and sensations are aroused in all readers, but no satisfaction is ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... walks round it. The comfortable, though unpretending, little Hotel de St. Pierre stands outside the town, and commands a fine view. While I was at Vire, the fete day of the Emperor was celebrated—with profound apathy. Not a dozen houses responded to the prefet's invitation to illuminate. There being no troops in the town, and a military show being indispensable, there was a review of the firemen in military uniforms; a single brass cannon pestered us with its noise all the morning; the "veterans" of the Napoleonic army (every surviving drummer-boy of the army of 1815 ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various

... have allowed that they were not devoid of song. But it was better perhaps that she should be left free to follow her own instincts. The true teacher is the one who is able to guide those instincts, strengthen them with authority, and illuminate them with revelation of their own fundamental truth. The best this good minister could do was not to interfere with them. He was so anxious to help her, however, that, partly to gain some minutes for reflection, partly to get the assistance of ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald

... three of the gates look every way, it may be also to show us that there is none can enter into this city, but by the three offices of the Lord Jesus. Christ by his priestly office must wash away their sins; and by his prophetical office he must illuminate, teach, guide, and refresh them; and by his kingly office, rule over them and govern them with his Word (Heb 7:5; John 13:8; Acts 3:22-24; Isa 40:10,11; 9:6,7; ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... and sometimes their unconscious lessons illuminate the deeper experiences of life. One such illumination is connected in my mind with the little trellised verandah, shown in the photograph, of the cottage used as a nursery when Mala ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... apprehended. And many were disguised in the skins of wild beasts and worried to death by dogs, some were crucified, and others were wrapped in pitched shirts and set on fire when the day closed, that they might serve as lights to illuminate the night. Nero lent his own garden for these executions, and celebrated at the same time a public entertainment in the circus, being a spectator of the whole in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes mingling with the crowd on foot, and ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume I, No. 8, August, 1880 • Various

... good citizen, and if our officers do not wish us to illuminate the town, I shall respect ...
— Stories of Great Inventors - Fulton, Whitney, Morse, Cooper, Edison • Hattie E. Macomber

... to conclude that this was altogether a night of terrors. It was, in fact, not so very disagreeable after all. There was a by-play going on much of the time, which served to illuminate the thick darkness, and divert our minds from the gloomier aspects of the scene. Smith, the teamster who brought me across, had returned to the mainland with the horses, and then swam back to the island. By midnight he had become very drunk. One of the ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty

... discovery would do most to forward our inquiry, what one bit of knowledge would more than any other illuminate the problem, I think we may give the answer without hesitation. The greatest advance that we can foresee will be made when it is found possible to connect the geometrical phenomena of development with the chemical. The geometrical symmetry of living things is the key to a knowledge of their ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... said, "nothing happened to me, as you may well guess, for the years of childhood that followed, when I was learning to read, write, and illuminate, to sew, embroider, cook, and serve in various ways. My Lady Prioress found that I had a wit at devising patterns and such like, so I was kept mainly to the embroidery and painting: being first reminded that it was not for mine own enjoyment, but that I should so best serve the Order. I took ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt

... dishonoured through their silliness. But while they, self-deprived of light, grope like blind men along a wall, and fall into many a ditch, and scratch out their eyes on many a bramble bush, the sun, firmly established on his own glory, shall illuminate them that gaze upon his beams with unveiled face. Even so shineth the light of Christ on all men abundantly, imparting to us of his lustre. But every man shareth thereof in proportion to his desire and zeal. For the Sun of righteousness disappointeth none of them that would fix their gaze on him, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... always seemed to be rushing past her in bright pursuit of alluring things which belonged to them as part of their existence, but which had had nothing to do with her own youth. Now the stream had paused as if she had for the moment some connection with it. The swift light she was used to seeing illuminate glancing eyes as she passed people in the street, she saw again and again as new arrivals appeared. Kathryn was quite excited by her eyes and eyelashes and George hovered about. There was a great deal of hovering. At the dinner table sleek ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... in which case he had better read no more Blake, or he will be strangely stirred and thrilled, he will be touched with a spark of the fire from Blake's spirit which quickens its words as the leaping tongues of flame illuminate its pages. The kernel of the book, and indeed of all Blake's message, is contained in the following statements on p. 4, headed "The Voice ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

... fully aware that this explanation by means of the subliminal consciousness will not explain very much and will at most invoke the aid of the unknown to illuminate the incomprehensible. But to explain a phenomenon, a Dr. J. de Modzelwski very truly says, "is to put forward a theory which is more familiar and more easily comprehensible to us than the phenomenon at issue." This is really what we are constantly and almost exclusively ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck

... the parricide, the mortal enemy of the greatness of France, had been struck dead by a cannon ball in the sight of the two armies. The commissaries of police ran about the city, knocked at the doors, and called the people up to illuminate. In an hour streets, quays and bridges were in a blaze: drums were beating and trumpets sounding: the bells of Notre Dame were ringing; peals of cannon were resounding from the batteries of the Bastile. Tables were set out in the streets; and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... strange flash was BEFORE he had told his story—when his admonitory glance—his polite way of compelling attention—was sweeping the table. In its course his eyes rested for an instant on mine, kindled with suspicion, and then there flashed from their depths a light that seemed to illuminate every corner of my brain. When I looked again his face was wreathed in smiles, his eyes sparkling with merriment. Instantly my doubts returned with redoubled force. What had he found in that instantaneous flash, I wondered? ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith

... refuse to listen to him at first. His observations, however, eventually make their way. We blame the Middle Ages for following authority, but what have we been always doing but following authority, except for the geniuses who come and lift us out of the rut and illuminate a new portion of the realm of medicine. After they have come, however, and done their work, their disciples proceed to see with their eyes and to think that they are making observations for themselves when they are merely following ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... sulphur match the more at carnival time. Indeed, Shakespeare criticism has been such a pageantry of spluttering candle-ends and sniffing wicks that it is well that one or two tallow dips leave the rabble and illuminate the adjacent alleys. It is down such an alley that Bell's smoking light goes ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks

... to come And find them out, and know them for our friends; These men who toiled and wrote only for this, To leave behind such modicum of truth As each perceived and each alone could tell. Silently waiting that from time to time It may be given them to illuminate Dull daily facts with pristine radiance For some long-waited-for affinity Who lingers yet in the deep womb of time. The shifting sun pierces the young green leaves Of elm trees, newly coming into bud, And splashes on the ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell

... fellow! Look at him, mother! look at him, ladies! Do you not see guilt written on his brow? It is he who has made us all this trouble. First, he must needs take umbrage at the two lights with which we presumed to illuminate our porch; then, envying Mrs. Burton her ruby and Mr. Deane his reward, seek to rob them both by grinding his hoofs all over the snow of the driveway till he came upon the jewel which Mr. Deane had dropped from his pocket, and, taking it up in a ball of snow, secrete it in his left ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green

... be that the best criterion of the future is the past. That, if any thing, will give a clue. And, looking back only through your time, what was the earliest feat of this same transcendentalism? The rays of the new moral Drummond Light were first concentrated to a focus at Paris, to illuminate the universe. In a twinkling it consumed the political, religious and social systems of France. It could not be extinguished there until literally drowned in blood. And then, from its ashes arose that ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... at the same shaft of light which had attracted Betty's attention. This, however, was no longer appearing upon the landing, but in the hall, which, with the exception of that corner which contained the crouching ex-footman, it was doing much to illuminate. From this it would appear that the arresting beam, so far from emanating from the moon, was none other than Mr. Morgan's evil genius, following him about wherever he went. It was, in fact, his torch, which in his confusion ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... was of large size, and undivided into apartments. The little fire was only able to illuminate the central section, and more than half of the room was hidden in utter darkness. The woman's face, which the faint flame over which she was crouched revealed with painful clearness, showed pale and haggard. The induration of exposure ...
— Holiday Tales - Christmas in the Adirondacks • W. H. H. Murray

... become incredible was indeed one of the most remarkable facts in English intellectual life during the opening phases of the war. The English state of mind was unlimited astonishment. There was an enormous sale of any German books that seemed likely to illuminate the mystery of this amazing concentration of hostility; the works of Bernhardi, Treitschke, Nietzsche, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, became the material of countless articles and interminable discussions. One saw little clerks on the ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... and stacks of volumes on religion, ethics, theology, casuistry, exegesis, philosophy, the Bible, ecclesiastical history, mysticism, apologetics, metaphysics and a dozen other subjects, all designed to illuminate, define and expound the realities that Jesus taught; but somehow they seem worthless when we note the clear grasp of the inner truth that the simple Indian had achieved without their help. We have tended to conceive of truth as something to be studied and apprehended ...
— Hidden from the Prudent - The 7th William Penn Lecture, May 8, 1921 • Paul Jones

... were turned on full. The grey of the cloudy winter day did not suffice to illuminate the room, especially since what brightness there was outside was every instant shut off by the water splashing ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... few nights before there had been a frost, which had inspired a rainbow soul into the woods; and the glory of the golden and crimson leaves made it imperatively necessary that they should be gathered and allowed to illuminate the dusky ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne

... that Europeans and Indians are alike British. Between them no demarcation was made, or seen, or felt, in the majestic spectacle of the campaign of the Sutlej. Their toil and their perils were in common—so shall be their honours and their fame: and while all men agree that every excellence which can illuminate and dignify the character of a British soldier, was displayed in stainless brightness by our European regiments on these colossal battle-fields, all men will also agree that the exact and cloudless counterpart ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various

... imbittered by insult and derision. Some were nailed on crosses; others sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and exposed to the fury of dogs; others again, smeared over with combustible materials, were used as torches to illuminate the darkness of the night. The gardens of Nero were destined for the melancholy spectacle, which was accompanied with a horse-race and honored with the presence of the emperor, who mingled with the populace ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... mentioned by Herodotus; which was generally observed, from the cataracts of the Nile to the borders of the Mediterranean, by hanging lamps of different kinds to the sides of the houses. On this day the Chinese not only illuminate their houses, but they also exercise their ingenuity in making transparencies in the shape of different animals, with which they run through the streets by night. The effect when perfectly dark is whimsical enough. Birds, beasts, fishes, and other animals are seen darting through the ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... perchance, where she was brought a gay and expecting bride by that husband she is expecting now to follow so soon to the spirit world. Could the pleasures or the gaities of the world cast one cheering beam upon their lonely home? O, no, the religion of Jesus alone can illuminate their benighted hearts, and in "this light they see light," and feel prepared to go when the ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... Most High; for you shall go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, [1:77]to give a knowledge of salvation to his people, with a forgiveness of sins, [1:78]on account of the compassionate mercies of our God, by which a morning from on high has visited us, [1:79]to illuminate those sitting in darkness and the shade of death, to direct our feet in the way of peace. [1:80]And the child grew, and became strong in spirit, and was in the wilderness till the day of his ...
— The New Testament • Various

... friendly have always seen in it the complete flowering of his worst tendencies. Critics have debated at great length the question whether he was 'justified' in introducing the supernatural at all. They have fallen back upon the ghost in 'Hamlet' for a precedent and have tried to illuminate the subject with the light of Lessing's famous comparison of Shakspere's ghost with Voltaire's in 'Semiramis'. Others have been shocked by Schiller's bold departure from history at the close. On a first reading ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... which may have passed never to be recalled. We are indebted to the still hours of the quiet Sabbath, to the leisure moments of our daily life, nay, to the sleepless couch of pain and suffering, and to the bitter time of woe and bereavement, for some of the best and truest thoughts which illuminate our mortal pilgrimage, and which give birth to our good resolutions. A single instant may produce an impression upon the heart which shall last to ...
— Little By Little - or, The Cruise of the Flyaway • William Taylor Adams

... that melancholy and eternally level line, the ocean horizon, hung a sun of brass, with no visible rays, in a sky of ashen hue. It was a sky the sun did not illuminate or enkindle, as is usual at sunsets. This sheet of sky was met by the salt mass of gray water, flecked here and there with white. A waft of dampness occasionally rose to their faces, which ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... and the oil-cruse, which we must properly use, if, in describing the lives of the saints, who shone in their conversation and example like the candlestick before the Lord, we should labor to clear away the superfluous, extinguish the false, and illuminate the obscure, which, though by the devotion we have toward St. Patrick we are bound to do, yet are we thereto enjoined by the commands of the most reverend Thomas, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, and of Malachy, the Bishop of Down; and to these are added the request ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various

... to the ledge, where the torch was still burning. Three more stuck in the crevices served to illuminate the ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon

... span more centuries or better illuminate the highlights of several decades, but until a rival is created with more historical depth and attention to detail, H. Beam Piper's Terro-Human Future History will stand as the Bayeux Tapestry of science ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr

... as they were, seemed to illuminate the ground floor only. From his hidden post he could see the shoulders of a man apparently bending over a ledger, diligently writing. At the next window a youth, seated upon a tall stool, was engaged in presumably the same occupation. ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... left, the eyes directed forward, countenance pleasant. The crimson curtain, and the two fairies used in the "Bust of Proserpine," can be used in this piece, the curtain placed above the statue, the fairies taking the same position as in Proserpine. Illuminate the stage with the footlights. ...
— Home Pastimes; or Tableaux Vivants • James H. Head

... underground shafts will be run alongside the sewers; into these shafts by means of a down draught all the products of combustion from our fires will be sucked by local pumping stations, and the oil condensing in the tubes will serve in turn to illuminate our streets, instead of performing its former function of turning day into night and ruining our health; but as I am not at all sure of the engineering possibilities of such a scheme, I will leave its discovery to some other ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... additional light upon history. They illuminate the dark passages, clear away the obscurities, and bridge over the gaps. Hugo, in 'Les Miserables,' says men solidified their ideas in architecture before the printed page came from the brain of Faust. He might have added, they wrote ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Bawden. We heard them greet him as "our savior." To show their respect for Mr. Bawden's former theological instructor, these poor men subscribed of their scanty means and hired a large gasoline street lamp to illuminate the evening service. ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong

... usefully as an example. Amongst the treasures of the ladies of my family, her letters have been honoured with a volume to themselves. I read about a half of them myself; then handed over the task to one of stauncher resolution, with orders to communicate any fact that should be found to illuminate these pages. Not one was found; it was her only art to communicate by post second-rate sermons at second-hand; and such, I take it, was the correspondence in which my grandmother delighted. If I am right, that of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... low shelves. There were bronzes, jars, and squat idols. There were a few pieces of Chinese ivory work. There were many skins of lions, bears, and tigers on the floor, besides a great Persian rug which gleamed like a blurred jewel. Besides the firelight there was only one great bronze lamp to illuminate the room. This lamp had a red shade, which cast a soft, fiery glow over everything. There were not many pictures. The rich Eastern stuffs, and even a skin or two of tawny hue, covered most of the wall-spaces above the book-cases, giving backgrounds of color to bronzes and ivory carvings, but ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... in shadow as far as the tops of the edges of those transparent hollows, because the sun could not then fling his rays into the mouth of the hollows, which however, at full moon, would be seen in bright light, at which time the moon is in the East and faces the sun in the West; then the sun would illuminate even the lowest depths of these transparent places and thus, as there would be no shadows cast, the moon at these times would not show us the spots in question; and so it would be, now more and now less, according to the changes in the position of the sun to the moon, and of the moon to our ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... is lacking, for many and most sweet reasons. I need not tell you that the taper was extinguished, and they stood locked in each other's arms against the open door, with only the reflection of the moon from the houses opposite to illuminate their meeting. ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford

... Hurlstone glanced, half mechanically, at the package before him. Suddenly his cheek reddened; he stopped, looked hurriedly at the retreating form of Perkins, and picked up a manuscript from the packet. It was in his wife's handwriting. A sudden idea flashed across his mind, and seemed to illuminate the obscure monotony of the story he had just heard. He turned hurriedly to the morocco case, and opened it with trembling fingers. It was a daguerreotype, faded and silvered; but the features were those ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... Hawthorne, Chinning, Emerson and Thoreau." It was their spirits that seemed to rule over the brooding landscape rather than that of the Minute Man, clothing each rock and tree with a luster the remembrance of which shall illuminate many ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand

... ran into Ganz himself. The Swiss was a short, fair, faded man, not too neat about his white clothes, with a pensive mustache and an ambiguous blue eye that lighted at sight of the young Englishman. The light, however, was not one to illuminate Matthews' darkness in the matter of news. What news trickled out of the local wire was very meager indeed. The Austrians were shelling Belgrade, the Germans, the Russians, and the French had gone in. That was all. No, not quite all; for the bank-rate in England had suddenly jumped ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... the same time getting a glimpse of Greene's idea. He held the torch pointing straight down, and saw the beam of light shooting straight down. It was not powerful enough, of course, by the time it reached the treetops, to illuminate them, and so make anything below visible, but it was certainly strong enough to be observed from below, he thought. But still there was no movement, and the uncanny ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Trail • George Durston

... slowness of mind in other men (Matt. 15:16; Mark 8:21). And in other things he is as quick—he sees "the kingdoms of this world in a moment of time" (Luke 4:5); he beholds "Satan fallen (aorist participle) from heaven like lightning" (Luke 10:18)—two very striking passages, which illuminate his mind for us in a very important phase of it. We ought to have been able to guess without them that he saw things instantly and in a flash—that they stood out for him in outline and colour and movement there and then. That is ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover

... little world as this is no more than a bee's leaving different sides of a bruised pear exuding honey. Up or down he is in the same fragrant garden, warm, light, redolent of roses, tremulous with bird song, amid a thousand caves of honeysuckles, "illuminate seclusions swung in air" to which his open sesame gives ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... contradict such an over-simple explanation, inasmuch as it is not at all true that only one content of consciousness can become vivid. Our attention does not focus upon one point at all but may illuminate a large field and thus give vividness to various complex groups. If I am thinking about a scientific problem, an abundance of reminiscences of previous reading and imaginative ideas of possible solutions, associative thoughts ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... she stands. The fire-flies illuminate her countenance—deserving a better light. But seen, even under their pale fitful coruscation, its beauty is beyond question. Her features of gipsy cast—to which the cloak's hood adds characteristic expression— produce a picture ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... meek Illuminate thy pallid cheek Beside the dying bed: To the poor suffering mortal's clutch Thy hard hand hath a gentle touch, With tears and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... again for your sake, Miriam, been able to do service, even to the saving of their lives, to those of your faith. Here there are many Christians whom it is an amusement to Nero to persecute, torture, and slay, sometimes by soaking them in tar and making of them living torches to illuminate his gardens, and sometimes in other fashions. The lives of sundry of these poor people he has given to me, when I begged them of him. Indeed, he has done more. Yesterday Nero came himself to the temple ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard

... Illuminate the rooms with candles in different colors with shades to correspond, green and white in the parlor, setting a row of candles in a straight line across the mantel and banking them with masses of feathery green. ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce

... She fell on the first chair that offered. Her candle behind her had little power over the glooms of the dark tapestried room, but it did serve to illuminate the lines of her own form, as she saw it reflected in the big glass of her wardrobe, straight in front of her. She sat with her hands round her knees, absently looking at herself, a white long-limbed apparition struck out of the darkness. But she was conscious of nothing save one mounting overwhelming ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... with which I attended course after course of lectures on geology, by America's greatest illustrator of that subject, arose rather from my affectionate reverence for our beloved Dr. H., and the fascinating charm which his glorious mind throws round every subject which it condescends to illuminate, than to any interest in the dry science itself. It is therefore with a most humiliating consciousness of my geological deficiencies that I offer you the only explanation which I have been able to obtain from those most learned in ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe

... behold the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land, which, at some happy period, in still later times, may blaze with full lustre; and, joining their influence to that of pure religion, may illuminate and invigorate the most distant extremities of that immense continent." It was argued by some of its supporters, that slavery was a necessary evil. On this argument Pitt remarked:—"The origin of the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... bring back that ancient reverence which regards the artist of the Beautiful as one of the chief God-revealers to the race of which he is a portion; which sees in the great musical artist, or the sculptor, or the painter, a God-inspired man, bringing down the grace of heaven to illuminate the dull grey planes of earth. The artists should be the prophets of our time, the revealers of the Divine smothered under the material; and were they this, they would be regarded with love and with reverence; for ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant

... with your opportunity you will light a torch that will illuminate the world. You will disband armies, you will convert ships of war into useful agencies of commerce; you will secure the construction of a continuous line of railways from New York to Buenos Ayres, with connections to the capital city of every American country; you will ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... as long as Hypatia lives to illuminate the earth; and, as far as I am concerned, I promise you a clear stage and—a great deal of favour; as is proved by my visiting you publicly at this moment, before I have given audience to one of the ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley

... one flings into the immense cavern which we are now trying to illuminate, the more profound it appears. It is a bottomless abyss. It appears to us that our task will be accomplished more agreeably and more instructively if we show the principles of strategy put into practice in the case of a woman, when she has reached a high degree of vicious accomplishment. ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... and went without any abatement of the storm. Despair was now on every countenance. Occasionally a vivid flash of lightning would break forth and illuminate the black and boiling surges that surrounded the vessel, which was now scudding before the blast ...
— Clotelle - The Colored Heroine • William Wells Brown

... what the blessed revolution had done for them—that those who desired to stand well with the Republic should rejoice openly at their deliverance from thraldom. In fact, those who lived in large towns, and who would not illuminate, were to be marked men—marked as secret friends to the monarchy—as inveterate foes to the Republic—and they were told that they were to be treated accordingly. Men then began to congregate in numbers round ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... ideala. identical : identa. idiom : idiomo, idiotismo. idiotic : idiota. idle : senokupa. idol : idolo. illegitimate : nelauxlegxa, bastarda, illuminate : ilumini. illusion : iluzio. illustrate : ilustri. image : figuro, bildo. imagine : imagi, revi. imbibe : ensorbi. imbue : penetri, inspiri. imitate : imiti. immediately : tuj. imminent : surpenda, minaca. impassive : stoika, kvietega. impertinent : impertinenta. implement : ilo. ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... of extinction, and, after a set period, as suddenly raised again. The chief superiority of this form of intermittent light is economy in the consumption of the gas. In the original design, of course, the oil continues uselessly to illuminate the interior of the screens during the period ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from the light of the sun, which falls on the not self-luminous substance of the moon. Out of the vast flood of light which the sun pours forth with such prodigality into space the dark body of the moon intercepts a little, and of that little it reflects a small fraction to illuminate the earth. The moon sheds so much light, and seems so bright, that it is often difficult at night to remember that the moon has no light except what falls on it from the sun. Nevertheless, the actual surface of the brightest full moon is perhaps not much brighter ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball

... ever shadowed in an Arabian Night's dream. I hesitate somewhat to make these vague allusions, since so many wild promises, for which I am not responsible, remain unfulfilled, but the time is surely near at hand when a single touch will illuminate our homes with a light which will combine all the elements of beauty, steadiness, softness, and absolute safety, to a degree as yet undreamed of. I do not ask you to accept this without question, but only to remember that within the last decade wires have been taught ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various

... reflect that out on the ocean, at night, the sole indication of the existence of this elaborate structure was given by the few beams of light that happened to radiate from it. Now raise your eyes to the stars; there are the twinkling lights. We cannot see what those lights illuminate, we can only conjecture what untold wealth of non-luminous bodies may also lie in their vicinity; we may, however, feel certain that just as the few gleaming lights from a ship are utterly inadequate to give a notion of the nature and the contents of an Atlantic steamer, ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... there a manual which will help a man to keep his light shining brightly—supposing he has a light to keep? But if he has but the cheapest of transient glims, good and bright enough for its narrow purpose, is it any wonder it burns foul, seeing what business usually it gets to illuminate in these exciting and hurried times. What work! I think it would make rebels of the most quiet, unadventurous, and simple-featured troop of words that ever a man gathered about him for the plain domestic ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... does consciously, from reminiscence and with a reaching after certain effects, what was once done simply, intuitively, and from the urgency of poetic feeling. A great difference must naturally exist not only in the outward mode but in the spirit of a group of modern artists who set to work to illuminate a sacred text, and that in which the task was undertaken by cloistered monks in whose gray lives a longing for beauty, for color, found expression only here. Thus one realizes that the decorative borders—which one ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... before, receiving fresh ones, or supplying the wants of chance customers. Before dusk the important arrangement of the window is completed. Then the gas is turned on, with supernumerary argand lamps and manifold waxlights, to illuminate countless cakes, of all prices and dimensions, that stand in rows and piles on the counters and sideboards, and in the windows. The richest in flavour and heaviest in weight and price are placed on large and massy salvers; one, enormously superior in size, is the chief object of curiosity; ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... pondered. She was unable to reduce it to formal terms, to be sure; but she felt a new delight, a new hope, and was uplifted, though she knew not why. Later—at the crisis of their lives—the perception returned with sufficient strength to illuminate ...
— The Mother • Norman Duncan

... it was by this light that I saw them, an internal, peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not reflected from a common source of light as in the daytime. This light sufficed only for the plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast any but the faintest shadows around it, or to illuminate any of the neighbouring objects with other than the faintest tinge of its own individual hue. From the lilies above mentioned, from the campanulas, from the foxgloves, and every bell-shaped flower, curious little figures shot up their heads, peeped at ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... are o'er, Happy school days come no more, Humble Dandelion! Through a desert I am walking, Hope eluding, pleasure mocking, Every earthly fountain dry, Yet when thou didst meet mine eye, Something like a beam of gladness Did illuminate my sadness, And I hail thee as a friend Come a holiday to spend By the couch of pain and anguish. Where I ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson

... most careful to see that the lamps which she lighted before the images of certain saints never went out. Burton himself looked upon all this with amused complacency and observed that she was a figure stayed somehow from the Middle Ages. If the mediaeval Mrs. Burton liked to illuminate the day with lamps or camphorated tapers, that, he said, was her business; adding that the light of the sun was good enough for him. He objected at first to her going to confession, but subsequently made no further reference to the subject. Once, even, in a moment of weakness, he gave her five ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... abundant obscenities; but scientific dignity, as well as the refinement of modern medical writers, has tended to compel the elimination of vulgarity. However, there are still too many physicians, especially those working with venereal and genito-urinary diseases, who go out of their way to illuminate their conversations, lectures, books, and magazine articles with veiled vulgarity. Even high-class medical journals occasionally contain illustrations of this tendency. However, the medical profession as a class stands for dignified scientific presentation of facts, and ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... not only a bookworm and a copyist, he soon got to be looked upon as a prodigy. He was a universal genius; he could do whatever he set his hand to, and better than any one else. He could draw, and paint, and illuminate, and work in metals. Some said he could even construct maps; he was versed in everything, and noticed everything from 'the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop upon the wall;' he was an expert in heraldry; he could tell you about whales, and camels, and ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... the time was about ripe to give these intruders the surprise of their lives. Up to this moment they had been having things their own way; but why should he wait until some one managed to draw a match out of his pocket, and faintly illuminate the apartment? ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren

... those States to representation here? Is it the views of the members of the House of Representatives? Do we stand in need of any light, however bright it may be, that may come from that distinguished quarter? Are we going to ask them to illuminate us by wisdom, and report the fact to us whether those States are entitled to representation ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes

... the soul," the architect went on, "Observe these great clusters of lights that illuminate this court and the approach on the other side of the tower. They look like stars, don't they? And the intention evidently is to use them for their star-like character. But there is history behind them. ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry

... excitement and enthusiasm with which Wilkes was received by the London mob. He was returned for Middlesex by a large majority. The mob which had passed out from London to Brentford, the polling-place, came back in triumph, forced people to illuminate their houses, and smashed many windows. If on Wilkes's return to England George had granted him a free pardon, the demagogue would probably have subsided into a peaceable member of parliament. Unfortunately he could not overlook Wilkes's insults ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt

... of it. Having admired these things, I go, dead tired and still headachy, down the road with my host who carries the lantern, through an atmosphere that has 45 per cent. of solid matter in the shape of mosquitoes; then wishing him good-night, I shut myself in, and illuminate, humbly, with a candle. The furniture of the house consists mainly of boxes, containing the wealth of Gray Shirt, in clothes, mirrors, etc. One corner of the room is taken up by great calabashes full of some sort of liquor, and there is an ivory bundle chair, a hanging mirror, several rusty guns, ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley



Words linked to "Illuminate" :   clarify, spotlight, adorn, artistic creation, floodlight, artistic production, rubricate, embellish, lighten, beautify, paint, miniate, grace, illumination, clear, decorate, lighten up, art, ornament, illuminant



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com