a. [f. LIGHT sb. + -FUL.] Full of light (lit. and fig.); luminous, bright.

1

1382.  Wyclif, Luke xi. 34. Al thi body schal be liȝtful.

2

a. 1450.  Cov. Myst. (Shaks. Soc.), 20. Aungelle in hevyn evyrmore xal be, In lythful clere bryth as ble.

3

1587.  Golding, De Mornay, iii. 35. Mortall sight, Too weake to see the lightfull Iove that ruleth all with right.

4

1605.  Sylvester, Du Bartas, II. iii. IV. Captaines, 199. The lightful ark, God’s sacred cabinet.

5

1650.  Earl Monm., trans. Senault’s Man bec. Guilty, 348. Chrystall becomes lightfull without softning it’s hardnesse.

6

1860.  Pusey, Min. Proph., 526. What in the Body of the Lord can be more lightful than those five Wounds?

7

1889.  Doyle, Micah Clarke, 164. The hall within was lightful and airy.

8

  Hence Lightfulness.

9

a. 1586.  Sidney, Arcadia, III. (1622), 265. No more then the Sunne wants waxe to bee the fewell of his glorious lightfulnesse.

10

1587.  Golding, De Mornay, vi. (1617), 78. He calleth him the First beginner, Lightfulnesse, or altogether Light.

11

1839.  Bailey, Festus, xxv. (1848), 313. Watery lightfulness of ghostly eyes.

12