From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishilluminateil‧lu‧mi‧nate /ɪˈluːməneɪt, ɪˈljuː- $ ɪˈluː-/ ●○○ (also illumine) verb [transitive] 1 LIGHTto make a light shine on something, or to fill a place with light A single candle illuminated his face. At night the canals are beautifully illuminated.2 formalCLEAR/EASY TO UNDERSTAND to make something much clearer and easier to understand The report illuminated the difficult issues at the heart of science policy.→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
illuminate• Annotated, logged and indexed, his book scarcely illuminated Belushi's demons, or the system that supposedly destroyed him.• The room was illuminated by candles.• A small path was illuminated by low orange lamps concealed in the flower beds.• Down below, he could see the single torch beam which illuminated Devlin, the girl and Gilbert.• Small lights illuminate different points on the map.• The story of Ruth illuminates for me the unbridgeable difference, rather than the similarity, between her situation and mine.• But their worry is focused like a hot, illuminating light in the right ways.• The blazing fire illuminated the china ornaments above the hearth.• Newly discovered artifacts may help illuminate the culture of the Aztecs.• There are a number of ways in which one may use the individual pinpoints of light to illuminate the territory between them.Origin illuminate (1400-1500) Latin past participle of illuminare, from lumen “light” 