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BRIGHTNESS
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I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The location of a visual perception along a continuum from black to white
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("brightness" is a kind of...):
light; lightness (the visual effect of illumination on objects or scenes as created in pictures)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brightness"):
blaze; brilliance; glare (a light within the field of vision that is brighter than the brightness to which the eyes are adapted)
dazzle (brightness enough to blind partially and temporarily)
glisten; glister; glitter; scintillation; sparkle (the quality of shining with a bright reflected light)
flash (a momentary brightness)
glint (a spatially localized brightness)
iridescence; opalescence (the visual property of something having a milky brightness and a play of colors from the surface)
effulgence; radiance; radiancy; refulgence; refulgency; shine (the quality of being bright and sending out rays of light)
brilliancy; luster; lustre; splendor; splendour (a quality that outshines the usual)
Antonym:
dullness (a lack of visual brightness)
Derivation:
bright (emitting or reflecting light readily or in large amounts)
bright (having strong or striking color)
Sense 2
Meaning:
The quality of being luminous; emitting or reflecting light
Example:
its luminosity is measured relative to that of our sun
Synonyms:
brightness; brightness level; light; luminance; luminosity; luminousness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("brightness" is a kind of...):
physical property (any property used to characterize matter and energy and their interactions)
Attribute:
bright (emitting or reflecting light readily or in large amounts)
dull (emitting or reflecting very little light)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "brightness"):
illuminance; illumination (the luminous flux incident on a unit area)
incandescence (light from heat)
glow; luminescence (light from nonthermal sources)
Derivation:
bright (having lots of light either natural or artificial)
bright (not made dim or less bright)
bright (made smooth and bright by or as if by rubbing; reflecting a sheen or glow)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Intelligence as manifested in being quick and witty
Synonyms:
brightness; cleverness; smartness
Classified under:
Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents
Hypernyms ("brightness" is a kind of...):
intelligence (the ability to comprehend; to understand and profit from experience)
Derivation:
bright (likely to turn out well in the future)
bright (characterized by quickness and ease in learning)
Context examples:
After the transit ended, Hubble detected a second, and much smaller, decrease in the star’s brightness approximately 3.5 hours later.
(Astronomers Find First Evidence of Possible Moon Outside Our Solar System, NASA)
Spitzer observed changes in the planet's brightness as the planet spun on its axis, finding a rotation period of 90 hours.
(Investigating the Mystery of Migrating 'Hot Jupiters', NASA)
The main purpose for most imaging of the sun by Curiosity and other Mars rovers has been to monitor how its apparent brightness is affected by dust in Mars' atmosphere above the rovers.
(Curiosity Mars Rover Tracks Sunspots, NASA)
Without this mask, the faint light from the planet would be utterly overwhelmed by the intense brightness of PDS 70.
(First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet, ESO)
They found that phantom brightness enhancements appear in places where the viewer is looking through a "fold" in the curtain.
(Saturn Moon's Activity Could Be 'Curtain Eruptions', NASA)
Tau Ceti, a favorite destination of science fiction writers, is very similar to the sun both in size and brightness.
(Potentially Habitable 'Super-Earths' Found Orbiting around Sun's near Neighbor, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
From its reflected brightness, astronomers estimate that the asteroid is about 20 meters in size.
(Small Asteroid to Safely Pass Close to Earth Sunday, NASA)
Everything was ready, and all the pomp and brightness of the court was there.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
They walked over a pavement of the same green marble, and where the blocks were joined together were rows of emeralds, set closely, and glittering in the brightness of the sun.
(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)
Elizabeth also wept and was unhappy, but hers also was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
