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illumination

noun

Simple meaning

Festive decoration of houses or buildings with lights.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

ihloomuhnayshuhn

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ɪluməˈneɪʃən

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.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The act of illuminating, or supplying with light; the state of being illuminated.

  2. Festive decoration of houses or buildings with lights.

  3. figurative

    Enlightening influence; inspiration.

  4. Adornment of books and manuscripts with colored illustrations. See illuminate (transitive verb).

  5. figurative

    Splendour; brightness.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Formality
Technical

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Adornment / painting

manuscript illumination

Spiritual

divine illumination

Other combinations

oblique illuminationgeneral illuminationartificial illuminationspiritual illuminationfield illuminationuniform illumination

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: illuminating or or supplying with light

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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.