Illustrious
adj ·Uncommon ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Admired, distinguished, respected, or well-known.
"A solid and substantial greatness of soul looks down, with a generous neglect, on the censures and applauses of the multitude, and places a man beyond the little noise and strife of tongues. Accordingly we find in ourselves a secret awe and veneration for the character of one who moves above us, in a regular and illustrious course of virtue, without any regard to our own good or ill opinions of him, to our reproaches or commendations."
- 1 having or conferring glory wordnet
- 2 widely known and esteemed wordnet
Example
More examples"The actor's illustrious career was honored at a gala event attended by a bevy of A-list celebrities."
Etymology
From Latin illūstris (“bright, shining; distinguished, prominent, illustrious”) + -ous (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree). Illūstris is derived from illūstrō (“to brighten, illuminate; to make famous or illustrious”), from in- (“in, inside”) + lūstrō (“to purify by making a sacrifice; to brighten, illuminate”) (from lūstrō (“purificatory sacrifice”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“bright; to shine”) or *lewh₃- (“to wash”)).
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.