Word of the Day: June 7, 2009 - brilliant

brilliant (bril-yuhnt) - adjective

Brilliant means "shining brightly; sparkling; glittering," or "having or showing great intelligence, talent, quality, etc."

First used in the written form around 1675–1685. Brilliant comes from the French word brilliant, the present participle of briller, meaning "shine." French borrowed the verb from the Italian brillare, but it is not altogether clear where Italian got it from. One theory is that it came from Vulgar Latin berillare, a derivative of berillus, meaning "precious stone." The source of the Latin noun was Greek berullos, which may have come from one of the Indo-European languages of India (Sanskrit vaidurya, meaning "cat's-eye" has been compared).

Photo by Abulic Monkey