Meanings
- not comparableBearing or serving as a medium for light; (by extension) luminous; bright
The high worth of diamonds comes from the same source: a super-hard, eternal substance, at the same time a light-bearing, translucent substance, a kind of solid emptiness, a marvelous optical illusion.
1996, Russian Studies, Philosophy1 more example
Others within the Cartesian tradition took the idea of a light-bearing medium in quite different directions. For instance, in 1690 Christiaan Huygens considered light to be a sequence of pulses traveling at a finite velocity within the medium.
2014, Peter Pesic, Music and the Making of Modern Science
Origin
From light + bearing. Compare Old English lēohtbǣre (“luminous, bright, splendid”, literally “light-bearing”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
light-bearing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/light-bearing
“light-bearing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/light-bearing. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “light-bearing,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/light-bearing.
Source: light-bearing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.