BRILLIANCY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does brilliancy mean? 

• BRILLIANCY (noun)
  The noun BRILLIANCY has 1 sense:

1. a quality that outshines the usual

  Familiarity information: BRILLIANCY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BRILLIANCY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A quality that outshines the usual

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

brilliancy; luster; lustre; splendor; splendour

Hypernyms ("brilliancy" is a kind of...):

brightness (the location of a visual perception along a continuum from black to white)

Derivation:

brilliant (full of light; shining intensely)

brilliant (having strong or striking color)

brilliant (characterized by grandeur)

brilliant (having or marked by unusual and impressive intelligence)

brilliant (clear and sharp and ringing)

brilliant (of surpassing excellence)

 Context examples 

The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

His face was stern, the lines of it had grown hard, and yet in his eyes—blue, clear blue this day—there was a strange brilliancy, a bright scintillating light.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Even with eyes protected by the green spectacles, Dorothy and her friends were at first dazzled by the brilliancy of the wonderful City.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

The fame and brilliancy of the prince's court had drawn the knights-errant and pursuivants-of-arms from every part of Europe.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Anne saw nothing, thought nothing of the brilliancy of the room.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

In stumbling to the door, she upset the basket, and—oh horror!—the lobster, in all its vulgar size and brilliancy, was revealed to the highborn eyes of a Tudor!

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

"Add to which," cried Marianne, "that he has neither genius, taste, nor spirit. That his understanding has no brilliancy, his feelings no ardour, and his voice no expression."

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Last night it had been hope and smiles, bustle and motion, noise and brilliancy, in the drawing-room, and out of the drawing-room, and everywhere.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Her queenly figure was moulded upon large and noble lines, while her face, though already tending to become somewhat heavy and coarse, was still remarkable for the brilliancy of the complexion, the beauty of the large, light blue eyes, and the tinge of the dark hair which curled over the low white forehead.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There was too much domestic happiness in his brother's house; woman wore too amiable a form in it; Isabella was too much like Emma—differing only in those striking inferiorities, which always brought the other in brilliancy before him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)