illumine

American  

[ih-loo-min] / ɪˈlu mɪn /

verb (used with or without object)

illumined, illumining

1. to illuminate.

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illumine British  

/ ɪˈluːmɪn /

verb

1. a literary word for illuminate

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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

“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

But Ms. Fairchild’s social media post guides us to the gold at its heart: Ms. McBride brings “nuggets of wisdom” about what Balanchine said that illumine a ballet that Ms. Fairchild has already loved dancing.

From New York Times • Feb. 13, 2018

It’s not quite the case that the people Faye meets illumine various facets of Faye herself—she remains a cipher, however much we might want to speculate about her.

From Slate • Jan. 23, 2017

He was holding the lamp high up, so as to illumine the whole room, and in the warm dim light the place looked curiously inviting.

From "1984" by George Orwell