CELLNTUU

Word of the Week

A feature wherein TileHead highlights a word that is is especially interesting or unusual (and, incidentally, useful in Scrabble play):

CELLNTUU

(unscramble the letters to form this week's word...)

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(answer below, after a little more spoiler space....)

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This week's word is...

LUCULENT adj.

• Definition: clear and convincing; lucid

• Front hooks: (none)
• Back hooks: (none)
• Anagrams: (none)
• Longer extensions: -LY
• Wraparounds: (none)
• Other Spellings: (none)
• Related Forms: LUCULENTLY (adv.)

TileHead says:

• Stemming from the Latin lux ("light"), luculent once meant "full of light, bright, shining," but now it is nearly always used to mean clear and convincing, such as "a luculent argument" or "luculent observations."

• The lux root shines on many English words, including the following:
• ELUCIDATE (to make clear, to explain), ELUCIDATOR, ELUCIDATIVE
• LUX (a unit of illumination), MICROLUX, MILLILUX
• LUCID (easily understood) LUCIDLY, LUCIDITY, LUCIDNESS
• LUCENT (giving off light), LUCENTLY
• LUCENCE (the quality of giving off light), LUCENCY
• LUCIFER (a friction match)
• LUCIFERIN (an organic substance that that upon oxidation produces a heatless light, such as in the firefly or glowworm)
• LUCIFERASE (an enzyme that catalyzes the oxidation of luciferin)\
• LUCIFEROUS (bringing or conveying light or insight)
• NOCTILUCA (a marine-dwelling luminescent microorganism)
• RADIOLUCENT (transparent to X-rays), RADIOLUCENCY
• PELLUCID (allowing light to pass through; translucent, transparent), PELLUCIDLY
• TRANSLUCENT (allowing light to pass through; transparent), TRANSLUCENCE, TRANSLUCENCY, TRANSLUCENTLY, SEMITRANSLUCENT

And a couple of my favorites:

• RELUCENT: (adj.) reflecting light; gleaming; radiant; resplendent
• "The more successful a clan-leader was, the more his palace would have glittered – storerooms and tombs would have been stacked with relucent treasure."
  – Bettany Hughes, Helen of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World (2007)
  

• LUCUBRATE and ELUCUBRATE: (v.) to produce by laborious study, especially during the night by artificial light or candlelight, i.e. to "burn the midnight oil"
  and
  LUCUBRATION and ELUCUBRATION: (n.) nocturnal study or meditation; the act or process of lucubrating; sometimes, study in general
• "I feel assured, that if Plato himself were to return and renew his sublime lucubrations in the metropolis of Great Britain, a handicraftsman... would be thought far the more respectable."
  – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Blessed Are Ye That Sow Beside All Waters! (1817)
• "Afternoons were generally reserved for Shakespeare and Roman historians, though masters of every kind passed across his desk, including Confucius. When he didn't have company, he would often lucubrate until early morning at his desk..."
  – Frederick Brown, Flaubert: A Biography (2007)