BRILLIANCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does brilliance mean? 

• BRILLIANCE (noun)
  The noun BRILLIANCE has 3 senses:

1. a light within the field of vision that is brighter than the brightness to which the eyes are adapted

2. the quality of being magnificent or splendid or grand

3. unusual mental ability

  Familiarity information: BRILLIANCE used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BRILLIANCE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A light within the field of vision that is brighter than the brightness to which the eyes are adapted

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

blaze; brilliance; glare

Context example:

a glare of sunlight

Hypernyms ("brilliance" is a kind of...):

brightness (the location of a visual perception along a continuum from black to white)

Derivation:

brilliant (full of light; shining intensely)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The quality of being magnificent or splendid or grand

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

brilliance; grandeur; grandness; magnificence; splendor; splendour

Context example:

advertisers capitalize on the grandness and elegance it brings to their products

Hypernyms ("brilliance" is a kind of...):

elegance (a refined quality of gracefulness and good taste)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brilliance"):

eclat (brilliant or conspicuous success or effect)

Derivation:

brilliant (characterized by grandeur)

brilliant (of surpassing excellence)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Unusual mental ability

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Synonyms:

brilliance; genius

Hypernyms ("brilliance" is a kind of...):

intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brilliance"):

coruscation (a sudden or striking display of brilliance)

pyrotechnics ((music) brilliance of display (as in the performance of music))

scintillation (a brilliant display of wit)

Derivation:

brilliant (having or marked by unusual and impressive intelligence)

 Context examples 

On the screen of his imagination he saw himself and this sweet and beautiful girl, facing each other and conversing in good English, in a room of books and paintings and tone and culture, and all illuminated by a bright light of steadfast brilliance; while ranged about and fading away to the remote edges of the screen were antithetical scenes, each scene a picture, and he the onlooker, free to look at will upon what he wished.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)