This week’s theme
Illustrated words

This week’s words
yeanling
ursiform
leptodactylous
zaftig
noctilucent


This week’s comments
AWADmail 962

Next week’s theme
Metal words

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(nok-tuh-LOO-suhnt)

MEANING:

adjective: Shining at night.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Latin nocti- (night) + lucent (shining). Ultimately from the Indo-European root leuk- (light), which also gave us lunar, lunatic, light, lightning, lucid, illuminate, illustrate, translucent, lux, lynx, pellucid, lutestring, lustrate, lucubrate, limn, and lea. Earliest documented use: 1691.

USAGE:

“But it was the noctilucent clouds that made the deepest impression on [Samantha Cristoforetti] -- wispy clouds that form high in the atmosphere and that the sun illuminates from below.”
Guy Chazan; “We Could Be Gone and the Earth Would Keep on Moving”; Financial Times (London, UK); Aug 29, 2020.

See more usage examples of noctilucent in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: