[f. LUMINOUS: see -ITY, -OSITY.]
1. The quality or condition of being luminous.
1634. Bp. Hall, Contempl., N. T., IV. vii. As it is in the sun … the luminosity of it being no whit impaired by that perpetual emission of lightsome beams.
1851–9. Owen, in Man. Sci. Enq., 369. The phenomena of oceanic luminosity.
1865. Ellen C. Clayton, Cruel Fortune, II. 148. To impart additional luminosity to your ideas.
1871. Darwin, Desc. Man, I. x. 345. The purpose of the luminosity in the female glowworm is … not understood.
1895. Zangwill, Master, II. i. 120. Luminosity of colour, richness of handling, grip of composition.
2. Something luminous; a luminous point or area.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxvii. (1856), 223. I thought I saw a luminosity overhead.
1873. Browning, Red Cott. Nt.-cap., 232. Then his face grew one luminosity.
1895. Zangwill, Master, II. ii. 142. The strange warm luminosities Matt professed to see on London tiles.
