Word of the Day Archive
Friday March 30, 2001
luminary \LOO-muh-nair-ee\
, noun:
1. Any body that gives light, especially one of the heavenly bodies.
2. A person of eminence or brilliant achievement.
There's something comforting in those occasional lapses when a luminary lurches and trips over the humble stone his powerful torch somehow failed to reveal.
-- Brad Leithauser, "You Haven't Heard the Last of This", New York Times, August 30, 1998
. . .such jazz luminaries as Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Louis Armstrong, and Earl Hines.
-- Daniel Mark Epstein, Nat King Cole
Luminary derives from Latin luminare, "a window," from lumin-, lumen, "light."
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for luminary
