For forms see LIGHT sb. and -SOME. [f. LIGHT sb. + -SOME.]
1. Radiant with light; light-giving, luminous.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 304/2. Lyghtesum, or fulle of lyghte, luminosus.
1530. Rastell, Bk. Purgat., III. ii. The sonne & the other sterres … we see them so lyghtsom, so pure and clene.
1655. Gurnall, Chr. in Arm., I. 3. Dark Lanthorn, lightsome one way, and dark another.
1813. Shelley, Q. Mab, 102. Lightsome clouds and shining seas.
b. fig.
1382. Wyclif, Ps. xviii[i]. 10. The heste of the Lord [is] liȝtsum, liȝtende eȝen.
1548. Udall, etc., Erasm. Par. John, 12. God the father, the fountain of all light; from whence what soeuer is lightsome in heauen and earth, boroweth his light.
1570–6. Lambarde, Peramb. Kent (1826), 3. Master Camden, the most lightsome antiquarie of this age.
1615. Bp. Hall, Contempl., O. T., XI. vii. The lights of Israel … should be succeeded with one, much more lightsome than they.
1728. Swift, Two Lett. to Publ. Dubl. Wkly. Jrnl., i. Wks. 1824, VII. 206. You must grow from chaos and darkness, to the little glimmerings of existence first, and then proceed to more lightsome appearances afterwards.
1883. R. W. Dixon, Mano, I. viii. 21. Those lightsome words that warm like summer days.
2. Chiefly of an apartment, a building: Permeated with light; well-lighted, bright, illumined.
1538. Leland, Itin., VII. 110. The Paroche Chirche is faire and lyghtesom.
1625. Bacon, Ess., Building (Arb.), 548. His Stately Galleries, and Roomes, so Large and Lightsome.
1654. Cokaine, Dianea, I. 44. The Princesse was full of wonder … That this habitation being under ground was so lightsome.
1726. Leoni, Designs, 2/2. The Ground-floor is … above the level of the Street, which … makes the offices beneath more lightsome.
1798. Wordsw., Goody Blake & H. Gill, v. The long, warm, lightsome summer-day.
1873. Symonds, Grk. Poets, xii. 407. Beneath the lightsome vault of heaven he stands and prays.
b. fig.
c. 1425. St. Mary of Oignies, I. v. in Anglia, VIII. 138. Þey [make] lightsum þe soule with a shynynge.
1587. Golding, De Mornay, viii. 101. Beyond the first Olimpiade, there is nothing but a thicke cloud of ignorance, euen in the lightsomest places of all Greece.
1641. M. Frank, Serm. (1672), 255. The times of the Gospel are the only lightsome day.
1863. W. G. Blaikie, Better Days Work. People, ii. 48. Will the six days of labour be none the lightsomer for the sunshine of the day of rest?
3. Clear, perspicuous, manifest. Now rare.
1532. More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 355/1. So shall I … make you that matter so lightsome and so clere.
1670. Milton, Hist. Eng., I. Wks. 1738, II. 2. I … shall endeavour … with plain and lightsome Brevity, to relate … things worth the noting.
1859. I. Taylor, Logic in Theol., 269. But were not ancient schemes of human nature … far more lightsome, and easy of apprehension.
† 4. Light-hued. Obs.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, III. (1633), 312. The lightsome colours of affection, shaded with the deepest shadowes of sorrow.
1608. Topsell, Serpents (1658), 767. Black, and not lightsome, only about the edges of it there was some palenesse apparent.
1674. N. Fairfax, Bulk & Selv., 52. It must be a bright lightsom colour.
