[f. next: see -ENCY.]
1. The state or quality of being lambent or shining with a clear soft light like a flame. Also (with pl.), an instance or occurrence of such shining.
1817. L. Hunt, Day by the Fire, in Hazlitt’s Round Table, II. 146. Sometimes a little flame appears at the corner of the grate like a quivering spangle; sometimes it swells out at top into a restless and brief lambency.
1835. N. P. Willis, in New Monthly Mag., XLIII. 305. The morning star, melting into the east with its transcendent lambency and whiteness.
1845. De Quincey, Suspiria de Profundis, I. in Blackw. Mag., LVII. 279. The fitful gloom and sudden lambencies of the room by fire-light suited our evening state of feelings.
1856. Ruskin, Mod. Paint., IV. V. viii. § 9. The soft lambency of the streamlet.
fig. 1866. Carlyle, Remin. (1881), I. 86. But there were sacred lambencies, tongues of authentic flame from heaven which kindled what was best in one.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, viii. 250. So that his [Aristophanes’] splendour is like that of northern streamers in its lambency, though swift and piercing as forked lightnings in its intensity.
b. transf. Brilliance and delicate play of wit or fancy.
1871. Carlyle, in Mrs. Carlyle’s Lett., I. 153. Thought, flowing out in lambencies of beautiful spontaneous wit and fancy.
1871. Morley, Vauvenargues, in Crit. Misc., I. (1878), 14. The presence of a certain lambency and play even in the exposition of truths of perfect assurance.
1885. Stevenson, Pr. Otto, I. iv. 51. A man of great erudition and some lambencies of wit.
¶ 2. In etymological sense: The action of licking.
1834. Oxf. Univ. Mag., I. 176. The mother’s tongue … with assiduous lambency has licked the unsightly cubs into shape.
