brightliest

English

Adverb

brightliest

1. (literary or poetic) superlative form of brightly: most brightly
   • 1829 May, Charles M., “Stanzas”, in The Ladies’ Museum […], volume I, London: James Robins and Co. […], page 271:

     Oh, never till then I knew the worth / Of woman’s love, its power to bless; / Which like the star, shines brightliest forth, / In darkest hour of bitterness!

   • 1831, Homer, translated by William Sotheby, “The Fifteenth Book of the Iliad”, in The Iliad of Homer, […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], page 105:

     Then Hector strove to break the rang’d array, / Where brightliest mail’d the densest squadrons lay; […]

   • 1835, [Thomas J. F. Kelly], “Act II. Scene I.—Castle of Ingelheim.”, in Henry IV. of Germany; a Tragedy, in Five Acts, New York, N.Y.: […] Osborn & Buckingham, […], page 33:

     Him I remember while this life endures. / The day lives brightliest in my memory / When from a matin fate he snatched my days.

   • 1838, [Horace Binney Wallace], chapter VII, in Stanley; or The Recollections of a Man of the World. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea & Blanchard, […], page 78:

     When danger, or the dread of it, encompasses the soul—when timidity fluctuates and excitement roars—who then controls? Not he, whose intellect is most logically practised—whose memory is richest stored—whose tongue is brightliest eloquent: but he whose eye blenches least—whose heart beats the calmest: he, it is, is master of the hour.

   • 1846 April 27, Robert Browning, “332 (W168): R.B. to E.B.B.”, in Elvan Kintner, editor, The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett 1845–1846, volume II (March 1846–September 1846), Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, published 1969, →ISBN, pages 657–658:

     But while the sun shone /brightest⟩brightliest/,—(and it shines now—) I said “The cold wind is felt thro’ it all,—she keeps the room!” The wind is unremitting,—savage.

   • 1850, James Clarence Mangan, “Bear Up. Ballad.”, in Hercules Ellis, editor, Romances and Ballads of Ireland, Dublin: […] James Duffy, […], stanza II, page 12:

     The dawn breaks at the darkest hour; / Stars brightliest shine when midnight skies / Are palled in gloom; […]

   • 1850, Philip James Bailey, “The Angel World”, in The Angel World, and Other Poems, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, page 37:

     At night, / When all the stars burned brightliest, and the bowers / Of song were silent, he in stealth returned— / And lo! the Spirit slumbering as before.

   • [1851, George L[illie] Craik, “[…] the Period of Middle English; […]”, in Outlines of the History of the English Language for the Use of the Junior Classes in Colleges and the Higher Classes in Schools, London: Chapman and Hall, […], subsection I, pages 111–112:

     [H]e [Edwin Guest] looks upon the final e of the adjective as being […] the affixed e which in Anglo-Saxon converted an adjective into an adverb. Thus, in the line from the Clerke’s Tale, in the Canterbury Tales, he regards bright-e as representing, not our present adjective bright, but our adverb brightly. In the superlative, however, he affirms, it is not the adverb, but the adjective, that takes the e; in other words, that brightest is brighteste, and that brightliest is brightest.]

   • 1854, Caroline Dent, “Home”, in Thougths and Sketches in Verse, London: Arthur Hall, Virtue, & Co. […], page 162:

     E’en Affection’s light is gone / Quickly where it brightliest shone, / And the tones that charm’d thy care / Leave dead silence on the air; / Is such thy home?

   • 1855, J. Frazer, “Aileen O’Moore”, in Edward Hayes, editor, The Ballads of Ireland, volume II, London; Edinburgh; Dublin: A[rchibald] Fullarton & Co., page 189:

     She haughtily swept by the Sassenach maiden, / Whose brow was with jewels the brightliest laden!

   • [1860, A[ugustus] H[enry] Keane, “(1350-1450). Middle English Period—[…]”, in Handbook of the History of the English Language, for the Use of Schools and Colleges, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, & Roberts; Dublin: John F. Fowler, […], subsection 4, pages 74–75:

     In the superlative the adverb terminated in -est simply, as in A.S. swiftost and swiftest=Old English swiftest=modern swiftliest. So brightest=brightliest, adv.; but brighteste=brightest, adj.]

   • 1861, William Billington, “Pause Not on the Path of Duty”, in Sheen and Shade: Lyrical Poems, Blackburn, Lancashire: John Neville Haworth, […]; London: Hall & Virtue, […], page 86:

     Pause not on the path of duty! / Progress is life’s law divine; / Rest doth rust—the rays of beauty / Brightliest when fleetest shine.

   • 1869, Charles Wadsworth, “The Gospel Call”, in Sermons, New York, N.Y.; San Francisco, Calif.: A[nton] Roman & Company, […], page 86:

     You are afraid of death—of the judgment—of eternity. That is thirst! Alas, I know it, for I have stood in the green places, where life’s water sparkled brightliest to mortal lips, and found the cup dashed with wormwood, and longed the while for water from a purer spring.

   • 1875, Sheldon Chadwick, “What Is Poetry?”, in Working and Singing: Poems, Lyrics, and Songs on the Life-March, London: […] Edwin Benson, […], page 82, column 2:

     Poetry is Faith; / It sees the throne of God, / Beyond the frozen seas of death, / In realms by Angels trod. / It blossoms brightliest above, / Where all is pure and perfect love!

   • [1876, “Ad′verb”, in John M[erry] Ross, editor, The Globe Enyclopædia of Universal Information, volume I, Boston, Mass.: Estes & Lauriat, […], page 25, column 1:

     As we can have the adjectival forms bright, brighter, brightest, so we can have the adverbial forms brightly, brightlier, brightliest, but degree is alike inconceivable in the adjective ‘round,’ and the A. ‘here.’]

   • 1880 May 22, John Moran, “Loyalty”, in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, volume L, number 1,286, New York, N.Y.: Frank Leslie’s Publishing House, page 190, column 1:

     Warm is our blood and our manhood the knightliest, / Loyal our service and gracious our quest. / How should we doubt when the sunlight falls brightliest? / How should we fear when time’s yoke presses lightliest? / What should we see but the glow of the West / In the eyes we love best?

   • 1886 January 2, Richard A[nthony] Proctor, “Night Sky.—December and January.”, in Scientific American […], volume LIV, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Munn & Co., page 3, column 1:

     In the southwest the Great Dog with the splendid Sirius (“which brightliest shines when laved of ocean’s wave”) shows resplendently.

   • [1887], Sidney Colvin, “Isabella.—Hyperion.—The Eve of St. Agnes.—The Eve of St. Mark.—La Belle Dame Sans Merci.—Lamia.—The Odes.—The Plays.”, in John Morley, editor, Keats (English Men of Letters; 38), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], page 151:

     Faiths as faiths perish one after another, but each in passing away bequeaths for the enrichment of the after-world whatever elements it has contained of imaginative or moral truth or beauty. The polytheism of ancient Greece, embodying the instinctive effort of the brightliest-gifted human race to explain its earliest experiences of nature and civilization, of the thousand moral and material forces, cruel or kindly, which environ and control the life of man on earth, is rich beyond measure in such elements; […]

   • 1890, Victor Hugo, translated by Nelson R[ich] Tyerman, “Jersey”, in G[eorge] T[homas] Bettany, editor, Select Poems and Tragedies (The Minerva Library of Famous Books; 17), London; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Ward, Lock, and Co., section “Personal Poems”, page 144:

     Hail, O sacred Isle, / That brightliest to heaven’s rosiest dawn dost smile!

   • 1898, Thomas Fergusson, chapter III, in Walter Græme; or, A Home among the Hills, and Other Poems, Paisley, Renfrewshire: J[ames] and R[obert] Parlane; Edinburgh; Glasgow: John Menzies and Co.; London: Houlston and Sons, page 46:

     Had I been a star, / I had put discord in the sphery music, / Were I not Venus, and burned brightliest.

   • 1906, Victor Hugo, translated by John Payne, “Night-Walk”, in Flowers of France: The Romantic Period: Hugo to Leconte de Lisle: Representative Poems of the Nineteenth Century Rendered into English Verse in Accordance with the Original Forms: […], volume I (The Main Battle), London: […] [T]he Villon Society: […], page 44:

     It is the hour when stars and women brightliest beam.

   • 1921 January 29, Ralph Gordon, “Russia: Shrine”, in Jacob Wittmer Hartmann, editor, Soviet Russia: A Weekly Journal of Information, volume IV, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Kenneth Durant, page 123, column 2:

     Because from thy pure bosom brightliest spring / The pure and sacred fires, and fairest shine / In all the ways of earth; […] Thee do we make our shrine, whose light doth glow / E’en through the hollow of our fearful night, / To bring us comfort of the light of thee.

   • 1922, Thomas Hardy, “An Ancient to Ancients”, in James Gibson, editor, The Variorum Edition of the Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., published 1978 (1979 edition), →ISBN, section “Late Lyrics and Earlier”, page 697, lines 57–63:

     Sophocles, Plato, Socrates, / Gentlemen, / Pythagoras, Thucydides, / Herodotus, and Homer, – yea, / Clement, Augustin, Origen, / Burnt brightlier towards their setting-day, / Gentlemen. […] 62 brightlier] brightliest ms

   • 1924, Eden Phillpotts, “The Mission”, in The Treasures of Typhon, London: Grant Richards Ltd. […], page 8:

     He whose torch of wisdom now burned brightliest at Athens had returned from exile, and his distracted nation enjoyed again some measure of freedom.

   • 1924, Eden Phillpotts, “The Rationalists”, in Thoughts in Prose and Verse, London: Watts & Co., […], page 7:

     Meantime we waited, watching, and perceived / The wondrous rainbow from our common sun / Of intellect shine brightliest on the cloud / Of man’s mistaken hope; for what had we, / Who taught in terms of life and death, to set / Against this gleaming immortality?

   • 1936 May, Hira Lal Chatterji, “Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru’s Report on Unemployment”, in Ramananda Chatterjee, editor, The Modern Review (A Monthly Review and Miscellany), volume LIX, number 5 (353 overall), Calcutta, Bengal Province: The Modern Review Office […], page 505, column 1:

     One of the brightliest gifted among University students, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru was perhaps never a candidate for a temporary munsiffship or the post of subregistrar on probation or an officiating vacancy under a village dominie.

   • 1999, Craig Childs, quoting Bruce Aiken, “Bruce Aiken: The Painter”, in Leo W. Banks, Craig Childs, Grand Canyon Stories: Then & Now, Phoenix, Ariz.: Arizona Highways Books, →ISBN, section “Now”, pages 162–163:

     You can look down into the Canyon [from the Rim] and everybody sees this rock, it’s so bright. […] The Hakatai shale. […] If you go out there to the Rim, you will see that color-wise it overpowers the Redwall by far, it overpowers the Supai, it overpowers the Hermit shale — which are all the real red units. The Dox sandstone is a beautiful red, too, but the Hakatai is orange. It is the brightliest-colored rock in the Canyon.