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illustrious

il·lust·rious

UK/ɪˈlʌs.tɹɪ.əs/ US/ɪˈlʌs.tɹi.əs/ uncommon

adjective

1.

widely known and esteemed

  • “a famous actor”
  • “a celebrated musician”
  • “a famed scientist”
  • “an illustrious judge”
  • “a notable historian”
  • “a renowned painter”
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2.

having or conferring glory

  • “an illustrious achievement”
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3.

having or worthy of pride

  • “redoubtable scholar of the Renaissance”
  • “born of a redoubtable family”
Synonyms
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Origin

From Latin illūstris (“bright, shining; distinguished, prominent, illustrious”) + -ous (suffix forming adjectives from nouns, to denote possession or presence of a quality in any degree). Illūstris is derived from illūstrō (“to brighten, illuminate; to make famous or illustrious”), from in- (“in, inside”) + lūstrō (“to purify by making a sacrifice; to brighten, illuminate”) (from lūstrō (“purificatory sacrifice”), possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“bright; to shine”) or *lewh₃- (“to wash”)).

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Word family

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.