Radiance

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈɹeɪdi.əns/

Definitions

1. The quality of emitting bright light or displaying a warm, glowing appearance that suggests inner joy or beauty
2. The quality of shining brightly or producing light, which can also represent an intense happiness or beauty radiating from a person or object
3. A state of emitting light or brightness, sometimes used metaphorically to describe the joy or beauty that seems to emanate from someone

Etymology: Radiance is a plain formation: it is simply the English adjective "radiant" with the suffix "-ance" attached, the same ending found in words like "abundance" and "distance." The adjective traces back through Latin "radiare," meaning "to shine" or "to emit rays," and that root is built on "radius," a word that originally meant a spoke of a wheel or a ray of light. The same underlying Latin stem gave English "ray" and "radius" as well. The suffix has its own long journey. It descends from a Latin ending that passed into Old French as "-ance," and that French form entered English in Middle English as "-aunce" before settling into the modern "-ance" spelling. So "radiance" is an English word built from a Latin stem and a French-inherited ending, put together once English already had "radiant" in use.

Synonyms: brightness, glow, luminescence, light, shine

Antonyms: darkness, dullness, gloom, shadow, obscurity