illume

present singular third person illumes · participle present illuming · participle past illumed · past illumed

1. archaicfigurativelypoeticusuallyTo throw or spread light upon; to make light or bright.

   Brighter the sun illumed the suburbs, more / Ugly and absolute that shade's reproof […]

   1840 March, Robert Browning, “Book the Third”, in Sordello, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 123

   3 more examples

   Laſt night of all, / When yond ſame Starre that's Weſtward from the Pole / Had made his courſe t’illume that part of Heauen / Where now it burnes, / Marcellus and my ſelfe, / The Bell then beating one.

   c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 152

   How dread the thunder's peal that rolls above ! How bright the flashes that illume the sky !

   1819, Samuel Mcpherson Janney, “The last of the Lenapé, and Other Poems”, in Electricity

   At night there is no light in this building, but searchlights from distant points illume the splendid dome and the colonnades.

   1915, Alfred Emanuel Smith, New Outlook, volume 109

   Synonyms: illuminate, illumine

1. archaicfigurativelypoeticuncountableusuallyIllumination.

   The abdication of belief / Makes the behavior small – / Better an ignis fatuus / Than no illume at all.

   c. 1882, Emily Dickinson, “An Ablative Estate”, in M[abel] L[oomis] Todd and M[illicent] T[odd] Bingham, editors, Bolts of Melody, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Row, published 1945, page 294

   3 more examples

   Till lo! at once broad through the gloom, / The lightnings flash’d their dread illume, / Full on a rock by copse embound, / And tore and whirl’d its ruins round; […]

   1838, James Struthers, “The Woes of Separation. A Tale. Addressed to Separation.”, in Poetic Tales: with Other Poems and Songs, Glasgow: […] Bell and Bain, part IV, page 37

   What, in the glowing constellation / Of gem-thoughts studding all high aspire throughout the ages / More truly is the lamp / Lit in the illume of the empyrean / That brightest gleams / Athwart the darksome way of every questor / Intent upon the holy mount of Truth?

   1887, anonymous author, “The Finding”, in Apotheosis of an Ideal. An Interior-Life Drama., Boston, Mass.: […] [David Clapp and Son], →OCLC, pages 38–39

   The silver on the leaves, the clover in the mist, / The light Acadian troll of winging lutanist; / Along an orchard’s path the fireweed’s orange flare, / Upon a mood’s gloom the illume of turquoise air.

   1913, Mary Robertine Stokes, “These Dear Old Fields of Kent”, in On a Green Slope: […], Boston, Mass.: Richard G. Badger, The Gorham Press, page 30