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Lambent and Flames
In his short story “The Word,” Vladimir Nabokov limned a dream-like landscape where “a wind, like the foretaste of a miracle, played in my hair” and grasses “lapped at the tree trunks like tongues of fire.” Both the wind and the grass in these passages might be described by one of the oldest senses of lambent: “playing lightly over a surface.” That Nabokov compared flames to tongues, as people often do, is doubly appropriate. Lambent, which first appeared in English in the 17th century, is a part of this tradition, coming from lambens, a form of the Latin verb lambere, meaning “to lick.” (Lap, as in “waves lapping at the shore,” also counts lambere among its distant relations.) Early uses of lambent were usually applied to flames or light (it can also mean “flickering”), and by way of that association, the term eventually came to describe things with a radiant or brilliant glow, first in a literal sense (“a lambent sunset”) and later a figurative one applied to prose, music, and other expressions marked by lightness or brilliance.
Examples of lambent in a Sentence
Rachel Syme, The New Yorker, 26 Nov. 2024
Where Magid set out to work through, with lambent melancholy, his personal connection to Zionism and its discontents, Feldman seems to have wanted to write a book about anything but Zionism.
—Gideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker, 15 Feb. 2024
Tunnel to Towers has become a lambent example of our civil society working just as ...
—Neal B. Freeman, National Review, 22 Sep. 2023
At the top end of the market, the power to authenticate a Picasso, a Rothko, a Hepworth, is a lambent, magical thing.
—Sam Knight, The New Yorker, 19 Sep. 2022
Finally, a razor-sharp line appeared ahead of us where the lambent sea ended and blackness began.
—Sam Keck Scott, Smithsonian Magazine, 27 June 2022
Rich and round with lambent acidity and a hint of orange citrics.
—Tom Mullen, Forbes, 22 May 2022
Within minutes the profile of the 2021 vintage emerged: bright and lambent acidity integrated with spry aromas of slightly wild red fruits—country lane strawberries and young raspberries—before a background of subtle, silky tannins.
—Tom Mullen, Forbes, 27 Mar. 2022
Silky tannins, lambent red fruit flavors—cherries, raspberries, light plums, passionfruit.
—Tom Mullen, Forbes, 31 Oct. 2021
Cite this Entry
“Lambent.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lambent. Accessed 29 Jul. 2025.
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lambent
adjective
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