a. [ad. L. fulgent-em, pr. pple. of fulgēre to shine: see -ENT.] Shining brightly; brilliant, glittering, resplendent. Now poet. or rhetorical.
1432–50. trans. Higden (Rolls), I. 13. Asches or sonde, whiche semenge as thynges impure and wontenge lyȝhte be wonte to yelde pure materes and fulgent.
a. 1500[?]. York Myst., Inholders (1885), 514. Hayle! fulgent Phebus.
1615. Crooke, Body of Man, 563. It doth lesse hinder the fulgent brightnes of the christaline.
1636. Heywood, Loves Mistress, 2nd Prol. Wks. 1874, V. 88.
| ’Twould change the sooty Inke, to liquid Gold | |
| Of fulgent beautie. |
1667. Milton, P. L., X. 449. At last, as from a Cloud, his fulgent head And shape Starr-bright appeer’d.
1770. Glover, Leonidas, IV. 518. Other Thracians … fulgent morions wore, With horns of bulls in imitating brass Curv’d o’er the crested ridge.
1807. Wordsw., Gipsies, 16. Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west.
1835. Blackw. Mag., XXXVIII. 401. Brighter … than the stream Which in Pirene shed its fulgent gleam.
fig. 1879. G. Meredith, Egoist, II. ii. 32. He may also perceive a resemblance in the wine to the studious mind, which is the obverse of our mortality, and throws off acids and crusty particles in the piling of the years, until it is fulgent by clarity.
b. Her. (See quot.)
1828–40. Berry, Encycl. Her., I, Fulgent, having rays, as a star fulgent.
Hence Fulgently adv., Fulgentness.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Fulgentness.
1880. G. Meredith, Trag. Com. (1881), 36. Her hero faced about and stood up, looking at her fulgently.
