☼ Concept Map

''incandescent'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

↩ 🔳 🔳 🔳

Primary

⁀➴

''incandescent'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260717141042-00-⌔

incandescent - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Adjective

incandescent (comparative more incandescent, superlative most incandescent)

  • Emitting light as a result of being heated.
    • ✤ We will all go together when we go/All suffused with an incandescent glow1
    • ✤ Rather than burning out as incandescent bulbs do, L.E.D.’s light output dims over tens of thousands of hours. L.E.D.’s are also more resistant to vibration than incandescents or screw-in fluorescent bulbs, and do not flicker or hum.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
  • (figurative) Showing intense emotion, as of a performance, etc.
    • ✤ The incandescent performance enraptured the audience.
  • Extremely angry; furious.
    • ✤ She is incandescent with rage because someone stole her wallet.

Noun

incandescent (plural incandescents)

  • An incandescent lamp or bulb.
    • ✤ Compact fluorescents are typically rated at 7,500 to 10,000 hours, and incandescents at about 1,500 hours.4

Etymology

Borrowed from French incandescent, from Latin incandescens, from incandesco (“be heated, glow”), from in- (intensifying prefix) +‎ candesco (“become white”), from candidus (“white”).

Pronunciation

  • (UK) IPA: /ˌɪn.kænˈdɛs.ənt/, /ˌɪŋ.kænˈdɛs.ənt/, /ˌɪn.kənˈdɛs.ənt/
  • (US) IPA: /ˌɪn.kænˈdɛs.ənt/, /ˌɪn.kənˈdɛs.ənt/
  • Audio (Australian): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -ɛsənt

Printed 2026-07-17.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1959, Tom Lehrer, “We Will All Go Together When We Go”: ↩

  2. 2007 March 1, Matthew L. Wald, “Room to Improve”, in The New York Times ‎, archived from the original on 3 June 2017: ↩

  3. 2013 November 27, John Grotzinger, “The world of Mars [print version: International Herald Tribune Magazine, 2013, p. 36]”, in The New York Times ‎, archived from the original on 2 November 2017: ↩

  4. 2007 March 1, Matthew L. Wald, “Room to Improve”, in The New York Times ‎, archived from the original on 3 June 2017: ↩

Link to original

Secondary

• • •