How to Use incandescence in a Sentence

incandescence

noun
  • The wall behind it, worn and discolored, has a scruffy incandescence.
    — Cate McQuaid, BostonGlobe.com, 28 Aug. 2019
  • This is called incandescence and is the way a traditional light bulb generates its light.
    — Kevin Davenport, idahostatesman, 3 July 2018
  • The information was to be transported by someone who could move freely, and who knew how to use her incandescence to cast shadows.
    — Lauren Michele Jackson, The New Yorker, 8 Aug. 2022
  • The incandescence is visible from tens of miles away, as Pacaya’s frequently spitting out molten rock.
    — Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 10 Dec. 2013
  • Occasionally, one slides to the floor, the slipperiness of silk on silk, a pool of gold and incandescence on the carpet.
    — Literary Hub, 21 Jan. 2026
  • The summit region is also showing strong incandescence, suggesting new magma is at or very near the surface.
    — Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 16 Apr. 2012
  • Once ritualized, a small event acquires an incandescence and a timeless eloquence.
    — André Aciman, Town & Country, 18 June 2020
  • In the face of celebrity’s special incandescence, perhaps there is no need for an origin story of mundanities like talent and hard work.
    — Sarah Resnick, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2020
  • Yet what makes Dylan so extraordinary is that the end of his early incandescence didn’t mark a sustained falling off.
    — David Remnick, The New Yorker, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Her incandescence becomes yours.
    — Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 7 May 2026
  • Poás in saw the first observation of daytime incandescence since 1981.
    — Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 9 Sep. 2011
  • The night offers its own solace — the hard, familiar stars, the oceanic incandescence of the aurora borealis.
    — Ned Rozell, Anchorage Daily News, 21 Nov. 2020
  • Then Drew Barrymore showed up, and the entire movie seemed to reshape itself, as though energized by her incandescence.
    — Los Angeles Times, 16 June 2021
  • Still, the blinding incandescence of celebrity proves impossible to ignore.
    — Molly Fischer, The New Yorker, 18 Nov. 2022
  • But sometimes the light burns bright indeed, and the incandescence of human cultural creativity can blind and disorient.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 1 Apr. 2012
  • Like the sparks that fly upward from the forge, struck to a brief moment of incandescence by the force of the blow, are the individuals whose troubles and fates furnish the daily business of a draft office.
    — Rosa Inocencio Smith, The Atlantic, 5 June 2017
  • Overnight, the Webcam on the rim of Halema`uma`u Crater recorded a few points of incandescence, waxing and waning in brightness, deep within the vent.
    — Erik Klemetti, WIRED, 2 July 2009
  • Popocatépetl produced a number of explosions as lava reaches the surface at the active vent, as evidenced by incandescence spotted at the volcano's summit.
    — Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 8 Jan. 2015
  • Last week, obvious incandescence was noted at the summit, along with strong, persistent fumarolic activity.
    — Erik Klemetti, Discover Magazine, 20 Nov. 2019
  • One marvels at the dead father’s incandescence, the widow’s frankness and courage, the survivor’s taciturnity and inner turmoil.
    — Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2022
  • Williams captures Mitzi’s all-encompassing incandescence and her isolation.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 9 Dec. 2022
  • For sheer incandescence, Rihanna is the ensemble’s biggest get, though the movie slyly dims her star wattage by casting her as Nine Ball, a tech whiz in an Army jacket.
    — Justin Chang, latimes.com, 6 June 2018
  • Private is the mystery incandescence of her nacre, coveting which the likes of us killed her ancestors to make buttons, souvenirs, entire garments for ritual dancers who sought to banish their demons with her magical inner light.
    — Literary Hub, 23 Feb. 2026
  • With her talent, incandescence and an underlying vulnerability, Monroe went on to become one of the most enduring stars of all time — with all kinds of stories attached to her legacy.
    — Kc Baker, PEOPLE, 6 May 2026
  • The performances reached lofty heights, technically and interpretively, with the final one in particular conveying an incandescence seldom heard in the concert hall.
    — David Mermelstein, WSJ, 31 May 2022
  • But a shadow fell across the universe as matter cooled from its early incandescence and relatively simple initial conditions advanced into intricate complexity.
    — Fabio Pacucci, Scientific American, 1 July 2022
  • In the paintings of the 19th-century Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershoi, the color gray achieves a beguiling incandescence.
    — Tom Delavan, New York Times, 22 Mar. 2017
  • The remaining three movements not only took their incandescence from that opening — one fuse lighting the next in an unbroken chain — but flourished even more engrossingly in the space left by Valcuha’s comparative restraint at the outset.
    — Joshua Kosman, San Francisco Chronicle, 4 May 2018
  • The show’s one flaw, at least for me, was Celeste’s efforts to find and combine three different sources of light — phosphorescence, incandescence and iridescence — in order to create luminescence, which isn’t really how that works.
    — San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Apr. 2021
  • To take advantage of incandescence, Edison experimented initially with platinum.
    — National Geographic, 27 Sep. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'incandescence.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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