Brightness

How to spell brightness

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce brightness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does brightness mean?

1. nounThe quality or degree of being bright; how much light something gives off or reflects.

Brightness in a sentence

• She lowered the brightness on her laptop to save the battery.

• The sudden brightness of the headlights made him squint.

Where does brightness come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is thoroughly native English, built from the adjective 'bright' and the suffix '-ness'. 'Bright' descends from the Old English beorht, meaning 'shining', 'radiant', or 'clear', which traces back to a Germanic root shared with words for brilliance and glittering light. The original spelling carried the harsh, throaty 'h' sound (preserved in the old 'gh' cluster), much like in 'night' and 'light', though that sound fell silent over the centuries while the spelling stubbornly stayed put. The suffix '-ness', also Old English, was a reliable way of turning an adjective into a noun naming a state or quality, and English has used it freely for over a thousand years. The chief modern spelling trap is simply that silent 'gh' sitting in the middle of the word, a frozen relic of how 'bright' was once pronounced.

How the word is built

• bright (from Old English beorht: shining, radiant)
• -ness (noun suffix forming a state or quality)