[f. BRILLIANT: see -ANCE. No corresponding word in Fr.]

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  1.  Intense or sparkling brightness or radiance, luster, splendor. [Not in Johnson, 1755–73.]

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1755.  Young, Centaur, i. (1757), IV. 107. How far wit can set wisdom at defiance, and, with its artful brilliances, dazzle common understandings?

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1830.  Tennyson, Ode to Mem., 20. Fruits Which in wintertide shall star The black earth with brilliance rare.

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1879.  Howells, L. Aroostook, xxii. 243. The brilliance of a lamp that shot its red across the gloom.

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1882.  M. A. Barker, in Macm. Mag., May, 64/2. Roderigues stands out well between the blue brilliances of sky and sea.

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  2.  fig.

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1779.  Johnson, L. P., Pope, Wks. IV. 75. A scholar with great brilliance of wit.

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1808.  J. Barlow, Columb., I. 198. New strength and brilliance flush’d his mortal sight.

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1842.  H. Rogers, Introd. Burke’s Wks. (1842), I. 3. Both [the brothers Burke] possessed much of the brilliance of mind which so eminently distinguished Edmund.

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1880.  L. Stephen, Pope, 17. The story is told … with his usual brilliance by Macaulay.

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  ¶ Brilliance and Brilliancy are to a great extent synonyms: brilliancy, however, is more distinctly a quality having degrees; as in the comparative brilliancy of two colors.

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