bright
adjective · noun · adverb · verb
Simple meaning
Emitting or reflecting light readily or in large amounts.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
brytIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɹaɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Emitting or reflecting light readily or in large amounts
“The sun was bright and hot.”
Emitting much light; visually dazzling; luminous, lucent, radiant.
Of an object, surface, etc.: reflecting much light; having a high lustre; gleaming, shiny.
Of a room or other place: having acoustic qualities that tend to cause much echoing or reverberation of sound, particularly at high frequencies.
Of light: brilliant, intense.
Of a place: not dark; well-lit.
noun
chiefly in the plural
Something (especially a product intended for sale) that has vivid colours or a lustrous appearance.
A person with a naturalistic worldview with no mystical or supernatural elements.
adverb
figuratively
Referring to colour: with bold or vivid colours; brightly, boldly, vividly.
often literary
In a bright manner; brightly, glowingly, luminously, lustrously.
verb
intransitivealso figuratively
Often followed by up: to become bright (in various senses); to brighten.
transitive
Often followed by up: to cast light on (someone or something); to brighten, to illuminate.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Emitting or reflecting light readily or in large amounts
Used this way, bright is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
“The sun was bright and hot.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- effulgent , more formal, and heavier in everyday conversation
- light , a specialist term, precise but narrower
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use bright
- “The sun was bright and hot.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
The location of a visual perception along a continuum from black to white.
With brightness.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A consoling aspect of a difficult situation.
Swamp plant of Europe and North America having bright yellow flowers resembling buttercups.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.