coruscating
adjective

- flashing, sparkling

- severely critical; scathing

Oxford Languages, OED Oxford English Dictionary

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WORD ORIGIN

The word "coruscating" comes from the Latin verb coruscare, which means "to flash" or "to glitter”. The root coruscare gave rise to the Latin present participle coruscatus, which also carried the meaning of "flashing" or "sparkling".

By the mid-18th century, the word "coruscate" was adopted into English, initially used to describe something that sparkled or gleamed brightly, such as light or stars. Over time, "coruscating" also came to be used metaphorically, referring to sharp, brilliant, or scathing wit or criticism.

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SEMANTIC SHIFT

“Words mean whatever I want them to mean!” declares Humpty Dumpty to Alice in Through the Looking Glass. This whimsical assertion captures a profound truth about language: meanings of words are never fixed, but constantly evolve through a process called "semantic shift”. While Lewis Carroll’s Alice might view this as a curious aspect of Wonderland, semantic shifts occur every day in the real world, subtly transforming how we understand the world and communicate with each other.

Today’s OWAD "coruscating" (meaning “sparkling, glittering, glistening”) is being eclipsed by “severely critical" or "scathing” use of language, a definition that has now entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

Technological advancement is accelerating semantic shift: "cloud" no longer just refers to visible masses of water droplets; it's now synonymous with digital storage, "tweet" has transformed from a bird's chirp to a short online message, while "viral" has shifted from a medical concern to a measure of online popularity.

Semantic shift reminds us to be mindful of context, audience, and the changing nature of language. Just as Alice learned to navigate the peculiar logic of "Wonderland", we have to adapt to the fluid meanings of words in our own world. Words may not mean tomorrow what we think they mean today!

Paul & Helga Smith

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SYNONYMS

for “glittering, sparkling”:

- a diamond in the rough, ablaze, agleam, aglow, asparkle, beaming, bedazzling, bejeweled, blazing, blinding, bling, bright, brilliant, catching the light, CORUSCATING, dazzling, diamond-like, effervescent, electric, eye-catching, fizzy, flashing, flickering, glimmering, glinting, glistening, glowing, incandescent, iridescent, irradiant, jewel-like, lambent, light-catching, like a christmas tree (a diamond, stars), luminescent, luminous, lustrous, on fire,  radiant, refulgent, resplendent, scintillating, shimmering, shining, shooting sparks, spangled, spangly, star-like, twinkling, vibrant, vivid

for “clever, sharp minded”:

- acute, adroit, agile, agile-minded, alert, as sharp as a tack, astute, attentive, a brain like a steel trap, boasts a high iq, brainy, brilliant, capable, canny, CORUSCATING, crafty, crack, creative, cunning, discerning, egghead, einstein, enlightened, fast thinker, foxy, genius, gifted, has all their marbles, ingenious, insightful, intellectual, intelligent, inventive, keen, keen-witted, know-it-all, knowledgeable, like a sponge, mentally agile, nimble, nimble-minded, not born yesterday, on the ball, perceptive, perspicacious, quick (on the uptake), quick-witted, razor-sharp, sagacious, sage, sapient, savant, savvy, sharp (as a whip), sharp cookie, shrewd, slick, smart (as a whip), streetwise, street-smart, the lights are on, whiz (kid), wise, witty, wizard

for “scathing, severely critical”:

- acerbic, acid, acidic, acrimonious, biting, bitter, blistering, brutal, burning, calling out, carping, caustic, censorious, condemnatory, contemptuous, CORUSCATING, cutting, damning, denigrating, denouncing, devastating, disparaging, do a hatchet job, doesn't mince words (pull any punches), excoriating, fault-finding, ferocious, fierce, flaying, give someone a dressing-down (a piece of your mind), harsh, having a go at, hitting below the belt, incendiary, lacerating, lambasting, laying into, merciless, not holding back, piercing, pillorying, pulling no punches, put someone through the wringer, raking over the coals, ripping apart, roasting, savage, scalding, scorching, severe, sharp-tongued, slamming, slashing, stinging, tearing a strip off, tearing into, trenchant, unforgiving, unsparing, venomous, vicious, virulent, vitriolic, withering

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SMUGGLE OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Her CORUSCATING remarks about the company's leadership led to her immediate dismissal.”

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