Illuminate

How to spell illuminate

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce illuminate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does illuminate mean?

1. verbTo light up something or make it bright with light.
2. verbTo make something clearer or easier to understand by explaining it.

Illuminate in a sentence

• The new floodlights illuminate the entire car park at night.

• The tutor used a simple diagram to illuminate the difficult concept.

• Candles illuminate the dining room during the power cut.

• Her detailed notes illuminate the steps that the manual left vague.

Where does illuminate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb illuminare, meaning 'to light up' or 'to throw light upon'. It was formed from the prefix in-, here meaning 'upon', which assimilated to il- before the following l, joined to lumen, the Latin noun for 'light' (the same root that gives us 'luminous' and 'luminary'). The double l in the modern spelling is therefore not arbitrary: it marks the meeting of that prefix with the light-root, and it is exactly the spot where writers slip by dropping one l. English took the word in during the late Middle Ages, partly through Old French, and from the start it carried both the literal sense of casting light and the figurative sense of shedding light on the mind. The medieval art of 'illuminating' manuscripts, decorating them with gold and bright colour, preserves that original idea of making the page shine.

How the word is built

• il- (in, on; assimilated form of in-)
• lumin (light, from Latin lumen)
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)