coruscate

/ˈkɒɹəskeɪt/

coruscate verb: to give off light; to reflect in flashes; to sparkle.

Image: United States Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

coruscate (third-person singular simple present coruscates, present participle coruscating, simple past and past participle coruscated)

(intransitive) To give off light; to reflect in flashes; to sparkle.
- Then He [Death himself] clapped spurs to his steed and it sprang into the air, sparks coruscating from its hooves.1983, Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic, published 2022, page 204
Synonyms:

gleam, glimmer, glisten, glitter, radiate, scintillate, sheen, shine, sparkle, twinkle
(figuratively, intransitive) To exhibit brilliant technique or style.
- For truth and tenderness do more / Than coruscating metaphor.1981, A. D. Hope, “His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell”, in A Book of Answers, archived from the original on 16 Jul 2021

third-person singular present	coruscates
present participle	coruscating
past participle	coruscated
past	coruscated
alternative form (dated)	corruscate

From Latin coruscātus, perfect passive participle of coruscō (“to flash, gleam”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).

What does coruscate mean?: Coruscate means to give off light; to reflect in flashes; to sparkle.
What part of speech is coruscate?: Coruscate is a verb.
How do you pronounce coruscate?: Coruscate is pronounced /ˈkɒɹəskeɪt/.
What is the past tense of coruscate?: The past tense of coruscate is coruscated.

Adapted from Wiktionary: coruscate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-coruscate.wav.

Cite this entry: “coruscate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/coruscate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.