Word of the Day: Coruscant, Coruscation and Coruscate

coruscant co-rus-cant / kə-ˈrə-skənt adjective  

1. gleaming, sparkling brilliantly

Not since Joan Sutherland used to dazzle us from the Met’s stage […] has a Met audience heard quite such coruscant pyrotechnics [as from Italian mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli in La Cenerentola]. John Ardoin, 1935-2001, “Love Match: In Cenerentola, Glitter is More Bartoli Than Glass,” Dallas Morning News, 11/13/1997   coruscation co-rus-ca-tion / kȯr-ə-ˈskā-shən noun  

1. an instance of flashing or gleaming

Wisps of arctic blue and green and purple buzzed and whirled within those sharp spikes, sending out a wild coruscation of coloured light. from ‘Cold Days’ by Jim Butcher, 1971-  

2. a moment of wit

Adoration says, ‘What must be the quality of that Being whose far-off and momentary coruscations are like this!’ from ‘Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer’ by C.S. Lewis, 1898-1963 coruscate co-rus-cate / ˈkȯr-ə-ˌskāt verb  

1. to give off beams of light; to sparkle

If you took the world away and just left the electricity, it would look like the most exquisite filigree ever made – a ball of twinkling silver lines with the occasional coruscating spike of a satellite beam. from ‘Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch’ by Terry Pratchett, 1948-2015  

2. to dazzle brilliantly

From her perch more than a kilometer aboveground, she surveys the city that never sleeps, glittering and coruscating in the rain like a metaphor for her glamorous life. Bao Shu, 1980-, Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 108