illuminate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To provide or brighten with light.
2. v. To decorate or hang with lights.
3. v. To make understandable; clarify: "Cleverly made attacks can . . . serve to illuminate important differences between candidates” ( New Republic).
4. v. To enlighten intellectually or spiritually; enable to understand.
5. v. To endow with fame or splendor; celebrate.
6. v. To adorn (a page of a book, for example) with ornamental designs, miniatures, or lettering in brilliant colors or precious metals.
7. v. To expose to or reveal by radiation.
8. v. To become lighted; glow.
9. v. To provide intellectual or spiritual enlightenment and understanding: "Once you decide to titillate instead of illuminate, you're on a slippery slope” ( Bill Moyers).
10. v. To be exposed to or revealed by radiation.
11. n. One who has or professes to have an unusual degree of enlightenment.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To give light to; light up.
2. To light up profusely; decorate with many lights, as for festivity, triumph, or homage: as, to illuminate one's house and grounds; the city was illuminated in honor of the victory.
3. To enlighten; inform; impart intellectual or moral light to.
4. To throw light upon; make luminous or clear; illustrate or elucidate.
5. To decorate in color by hand; adorn with pictures, ornamental letters, designs, etc., in colors, gold, silver, etc., in flat tints, especially without shading, or with merely conventional shading: as, the illuminated missals or manuscripts of the middle ages.
6. To display a profusion of lights, in order to express joy, triumph, etc.
7. Enlightened; illuminated.
8. Decorated with or as with colored pictures.
9. n. One who makes pretension to extraordinary light and knowledge. See illuminati.

Wiktionary

1. v. transitive to shine light on something
2. v. transitive to decorate something with lights
3. v. transitive to clarify or make something understandable
4. v. transitive to decorate the page of a manuscript book with ornamental designs
5. v. transitive, figuratively To make spectacular
6. v. intransitive to glow
7. v. intransitive to be exposed to light
8. n. Someone thought to have an unusual degree of enlightenment.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To make light; to throw light on; to supply with light, literally or figuratively; to brighten.
2. v. To light up; to decorate with artificial lights, as a building or city, in token of rejoicing or respect.
3. v. To adorn, as a book or page with borders, initial letters, or miniature pictures in colors and gold, as was done in manuscripts of the Middle Ages.
4. v. To make plain or clear; to dispel the obscurity to by knowledge or reason; to explain; to elucidate.
5. v. To light up in token or rejoicing.
6. adj. Enlightened.
7. n. One who is enlightened; esp., a pretender to extraordinary light and knowledge.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. add embellishments and paintings to (medieval manuscripts)
2. v. make free from confusion or ambiguity; make clear
3. v. make lighter or brighter