Radiating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Dispersing energy or light outward from a central source
2. Spreading in a manner reminiscent of rays extending from a focal point
3. Sending out energy or light from a core origin ; spreading outward in lines from a central location

Etymology: The core of "radiating" is the Latin word "radius", meaning a spoke of a wheel or a ray of light. Latin writers extended that image into a verb, "radiare", to give out rays, shine, or furnish with spokes, and its perfect passive participle "radiatus" gave English "radiate". The sense of light spreading from a centre is therefore built into the word from the start: the picture is of spokes running out from a hub. English took the word directly from Latin as a learned borrowing, so it kept the ray image rather than picking up a new one on the way. The "-ate" ending is the familiar Latin verb-forming suffix, which is why "radiate" sounds at home beside words like "vibrate" or "illuminate". The same Latin root also produced "radius", which English kept as a technical term for a line running from a circle's centre to its edge.

Synonyms: emitting, spreading

Antonyms: absorbing