illumination

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English illuminacioun,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Middle French illumination, recorded in the 14th century in Oresme,^[5][4][6][7] and directly borrowed from Late Latin illūminātiō (“spiritual enlightenment”),^[2][4][8][9] which in Classical Latin meant illustriousness or glory.^[8] The Latin noun of action is formed from the past participle of illūminō (“to throw light on, light up”),^[5][2][4] which in rhetoric also meant to set off or illustrate.^[2] The verb is formed from the assimilated prefix in- (“in, into”) and lūmen (“light”), from a suffixed form of Proto-Indo-European *leuk- (“light, brightness”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Spiritual enlightenment, divine inspiration, which the OED calls the earliest sense in English: in the plural, inspirations or revelations, about 1340 in Richard Rolle, and in the singular in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomew (1398).^[5] Etymonline dates the word to the late 14th century in this sense.^[2] The Middle English Dictionary also records the knowledge of God intuited by the higher orders of angels, and a vision or intuition.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense, a lighting up or supplying of light, is recorded only from 1563,^[5][2] two centuries after the spiritual one, and was soon used figuratively (1646).^[5] Intellectual enlightenment and learning followed in the 1630s, including the doctrines of the Illuminati.^[5][2] From 1691 the plural meant the lights hung out in token of festivity or rejoicing;^[5][2] since 1797 the word has also been used of the lighting up of a whole town or building.^[5][2] Johnson (1755) gave the act of supplying light, that which gives light, and festal lights as its senses.^[10] The decoration of manuscripts with colours, gold and silver is dated by the OED from 1856, in Ruskin, after an obsolete sense of colouring maps or prints in 1678;^[5] Etymonline dates the manuscript sense to the 1670s.^[2] In optics the word has meant, since 1863, the intensity of the light falling on a surface.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1340 – in the plural, inspirations, revelations.^[5]
• 1398 – spiritual enlightenment.^[5]
• 1563 – a lighting up, a supplying of light.^[5][2]
• 1634 – intellectual enlightenment, learning.^[5][2]
• 1656 – elucidation (rare and obsolete).^[5]
• 1678 – the colouring of maps or prints (obsolete).^[5]
• 1691 – in the plural, festive lights.^[5][2]
• 1797 – the festive lighting up of a building or town.^[5]
• 1856 – the decoration of manuscripts with colours and gold.^[5]
• 1863 – in optics, the intensity of light falling on a surface.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of lighting something up, or the state of being lit: The illumination of the stage came from a single lamp.^[11][4][5]
2. A source of light.^[11]
3. (chiefly British, often plural) Lights, especially coloured ones, used to decorate streets, parks or buildings.^[11][5]
4. Spiritual or intellectual enlightenment; insight or understanding.^[11][4][5]
5. The act of making something understood; clarification.^[11]
6. Decoration in colours, gold or silver on a manuscript or printed work; also, one of the designs so used.^[11][4][5]
7. (physics) Illuminance, the intensity of light falling on a surface.^[11][5]

Word family

• illuminational
• reillumination
• nonillumination
• preillumination
• transillumination

Related words

• illuminator
• illuminate
• illumine
• luminous
• luminary
• lumen

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins