Definition of "illuminator" [il•lu•mi•na•tor]

• One that illuminates, especially a device for producing, concentrating, or reflecting light. (noun)
• One who illuminates manuscripts or other objects. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "For example, to get me a UV lamp for viewing thin layer chromatography plates, an old microscope illuminator from the teaching lab had to be junked."
• "In the twelfth century when, as far as we know, the word illuminator was first applied to one who practised the art of book decoration, it meant one who "lighted up" the page of the book with bright colours and burnished gold."
• "If a scribe excelled in painting miniatures or initial letters he usually confined himself to such work, and was called illuminator, while one who worked chiefly on legal documents was a notarius."