Incandescent
adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 An incandescent lamp or bulb.
"Compact fluorescents are typically rated at 7,500 to 10,000 hours, and incandescents at about 1,500 hours."
- 1 Emitting light as a result of being heated.
"We will all go together when we go / All suffused with an incandescent glow"
- 2 Shining very brightly.
"Those multitoned buttes and mesas [of the Grand Canyon], and that incandescent sequence of colorful bands that make one of the natural wonders of the world so grand, can also be found over 100 million miles away [on Mars]."
- 3 Showing intense emotion, as of a performance, etc. figuratively
"The incandescent performance enraptured the audience."
- 4 Extremely angry; furious.
"She is incandescent with rage because someone stole her wallet."
- 1 emitting light as a result of being heated wordnet
- 2 characterized by ardent emotion or intensity or brilliance wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"She was incandescent with joy upon hearing his proposal."
Etymology
Borrowed from French incandescent, from Latin incandescens, from incandesco (“be heated, glow”), from in- (intensifying prefix) + candesco (“become white”), from candidus (“white”).
Related phrases
More for "incandescent"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.