Brighten

How to spell brighten

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce brighten

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does brighten mean?

1. verbTo make something more luminous or full of light, or to become so.
2. verbTo make a person's mood, outlook, or situation more cheerful or hopeful.

Brighten in a sentence

• A fresh coat of white paint will brighten the hallway.

• A short phone call from her son can brighten her whole day.

• The morning sun began to brighten the kitchen as she made coffee.

• The good sales figures helped to brighten the team's mood.

Where does brighten come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows from the Old English adjective beorht, meaning 'shining', 'radiant', or 'clear', a term that traces back to a Germanic root shared with related words across the old northern languages. For centuries the adjective stood on its own, but English has a long habit of building verbs by adding the suffix -en to an adjective, which carries the sense 'to make' or 'to become' (as in 'darken', 'sharpen', and 'widen'). 'Brighten' was formed in exactly this way and became common from around the 1500s, meaning both to make something more luminous and, figuratively, to make a mood or prospect more cheerful. The spelling keeps the silent 'gh' inherited from the older beorht, a cluster that no longer matches the modern sound but survives as a fossil in writing. That silent 'gh' is the only real trap here, since the word is otherwise spelled just as it sounds.

How the word is built

• bright (Old English beorht: shining, radiant)
• -en (verb suffix meaning 'to make or become')