a. [ad. L. lambent-em, pr. pple. of lambĕre to lick.]
1. Of a flame (fire, light): Playing lightly upon or gliding over a surface without burning it, like a ‘tongue of fire’; shining with a soft clear light and without fierce heat.
1647. Cowley, Mistress, Answ. Platonicks. As useless to despairing Lovers grown, As Lambent flames, to men i’ th’ Frigid Zone. Ibid. (1656), Pindar. Odes, Destinie, iv. The Star that did my Being frame, Was but a Lambent Flame, And some small Light it did dispence, But neither Heat nor Influence.
1697. Dryden, Æneid, VII. 114. Lambent Glories danc’d about her Head.
1781. Cavallo, in Phil. Trans., LXXI. 330. Because its light … was stationary and not lambent.
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sci., xxviii. (1849), 323. Those lambent, diffuse flashes of lightning without thunder, so frequent in warm summer evenings.
1854. Thackeray, Newcomes, I. 284. The lambent lights of the starry host of heaven.
1871. Roscoe, Elem. Chem., 13. Sulphur, which in the air burns with a pale lambent flame.
b. transf. and fig.
1682. Dryden, Mac Flecknoe, 111. His brows thick fogs instead of glories grace, And lambent dulness played around his face.
1748. Richardson, Clarissa (1811), III. xxxi. 187. My next point will be to make her acknowledge a lambent flame, a preference of me to all other men at least.
1841. Myers, Cath. Th., IV. xxxiii. 340. A mild and lambent light of Prophecy may be considered as encircling their [the Jews’] whole constitution.
1866. G. Macdonald, Ann. Q. Neighb., xii. (1878), 235. His intellect was rather a lambent flame than a genial warmth.
c. By extension, of eyes, the sky, etc.: Emitting, or suffused with, a soft clear light; softly radiant.
1717. Pope, Eloisa, 64. Those smiling eyes, attemp’ring ev’ry ray, Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day.
1808. J. Barlow, Columb., V. 304. A general jubilee, o’er earth and heaven, Leads the gay morn and lights the lambent even.
1867. Lydia M. Child, Rom. Repub., i. 3. Her large brown eyes were … lambent with interior light.
1873. Black, Pr. Thule, vi. 94. The strange lambent darkness … of those northern twilights. Ibid. (1877), Green Past., iv. (1878), 29. The great acacia spread its feathery branches into a cloudless and lambent sky.
1887. Ruskin, Præterita, II. 159. The Rhone flows like one lambent jewel.
d. fig. Of wit, style, etc.: Playing lightly and brilliantly over its subjects; gracefully sportive.
1871. Morley, J. de Maistre, in Crit. Misc., I. (1878), 112. A humour now and then a little sardonic, but more often genial and lambent.
1879. O. W. Holmes, Motley, viii. 59. Lambent phrases in stately articles.
1880. Disraeli, Endym., lxxvii. The style so picturesque and lambent!
2. In etymological sense: Licking, that licks. † Also = LAMBITIVE a. rare.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Lambent, licking with the Tongue; as, Lambent Medicines, i.e. such as are taken by licking off from the end of a Stick of Licorish, &c.
1784. Cowper, Task, VI. 782. To dally with the crested worm … or to receive The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol. (1828), IV. 492. The Hymenoptera generally lap their food with their tongue and may be called lambent insects.
