Definition of "illuminate" []

• To provide or brighten with light. (verb-transitive)
• To decorate or hang with lights. (verb-transitive)
• To make understandable; clarify: "Cleverly made attacks can . . . serve to illuminate important differences between candidates” ( New Republic). (verb-transitive)
• To enlighten intellectually or spiritually; enable to understand. (verb-transitive)
• To endow with fame or splendor; celebrate. (verb-transitive)

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.

• "He continues by breaking down UxD, examining how each element implied in the title illuminate his hypothesis - that the ephemeral and insubstantial"
• "What this article has tried to illuminate is a dual condition in which psychology — in a piecemeal way in the course of the early part of the nineteenth century — is emerging as an empirical science for the study of the individual mind, but is also at this point becoming a new forum for a humanist metaphysics of the individual."
• ""The average person sees more news in a day than they saw in a year 10 years ago," says Richard Buck, CEO and co-founder at Eluma (a variation of the word illuminate), which offers a new personal web organizer to handle the growing problem of information overload."