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
- incandescently adverb
- nonincandescent adjective
- nonincandescently adverb
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.
Mark Joseph Stern: This was one of the most incandescent judicial opinions I think I have ever seen.
From Slate • Jan. 23, 2026
“Everything suggests that the fire started from incandescent candles or sparklers attached to champagne bottles, brought too close to the ceiling,” said Beatrice Pilloud, attorney general for Valais, the Swiss canton where the fire occurred.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 2, 2026
And there’s a sort of incandescent poetic beauty to all that, and there’s just the sorrow to it because you also realize it’s the last of that moment.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 24, 2025
Overnight, AFP journalists saw Ukraine using tracer bullets and missile defence systems, and incandescent debris falling over large areas above the capital.
From Barron's • Nov. 14, 2025
A stripe of incandescent sky bums beneath the cloud base on the north-western horizon.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
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.
