lucency

[ loo-suhn-see ]

noun

1. the quality or degree of clarity or translucence:

   Suspended solids are an essential variable in assessing the lucency of the water, a key issue in the development of submerged vegetation.

2. a clear or translucent area:

   The chest x-ray showed a large lucency on the left hemithorax and a collapsed left lung.

3. Literary. a resplendent quality; radiance or brilliance:

   I felt a gradation move through what I beheld, like the sweep of lucency across a vast sheet of glazed light.

Word History and Origins

Origin of lucency¹

luc(ent) ( def ) + -ency ( def )

Example Sentences

The corrugated iron of the canneries glows with the pearly lucency of platinum or old pewter.

From Literature

Her complexion had the texture of a rose in November, the texture that gains a rare lucency from the grayness and moisture by which one might suppose it would be ruined.

From Project Gutenberg

Of course you 're breathing the fog of London while I am bathed in warmest lucency.

From Project Gutenberg

Even college kids, who cannot quite remember the debits and credits of the Kennedy Administration, are moved in memory by the lucency of the thousand days, the bravura of Jack's life and the trauma of his death.

From Time Magazine Archive

Here in the Crescent the orange lucency of the evening shed such a glory that the discoloration of the houses no longer spoke of miserably drawn-out decay, but took on rather the warmth of live rock.

From Project Gutenberg