luculent means shining, brilliant. It carries an Arena rating of 1832, earned across 32 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, luculent ranks #641 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #3,084 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #3,729 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #5,833 of 17,151 for The Improbable.
Why “luculent” is a great word
Clear and brilliant in thought or expression; shining with intellectual light. From the Latin lūculentus ("bright, splendid"), from lūc-, the stem of lux ("light"). First recorded in English in the late Middle English period (1375–1425). Unlike "lucid," which denotes sane or orderly coherence, or "pellucid," which suggests a crystal, literal transparency, "luculent" carries the specific luminance of a mind in full illumination. It is the sudden, piercing clarity of a mathematical proof, the sentence so precisely wrought that meaning glows from within, or the argument that leaves no corner of doubt unlit—an intellectual dawn that does not merely reveal, but dazzles.
Etymology
From Latin lūculentus, from lūx (“light”).
adj
- Shining, brilliant.
- Of language, speeches etc: lucid, brilliantly clear.e.g.“Cleombrotus Ambraciotes persuaded I know not how many hundreds of his auditors, by a luculent oration he made of the miseries of this, and happiness of that other life, to precipitate themselves […].” — , I.iv.1
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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