splendor

• splendour (British, Canadian)
• splendeur (British, Canadian)

From Anglo-Norman splendur, splendour, or directly from its source Latin splendor, from the verb splendeō (“to shine”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsplɛndə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsplɛndɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛndə(ɹ)

splendor (usually uncountable, plural splendors) (American spelling)

1. Great light, luster or brilliance.
   • 1829, Edgar Allan Poe, “Tamerlane”, in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems:

     What tho’ the moon—the white moon
     Shed all the splendour of her noon,
     Her smile is chilly—and her beam,
     In that time of dreariness, will seem
     (So like you gather in your breath)
     A portrait taken after death.

   • 1902, Rudyard Kipling, “How the Rhinoceros got its skin”, in Just So Stories:

     Once upon a time on an uninhabited island on the shores of the Red Sea, there lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental-splendour.

2. Magnificent appearance, display or grandeur.

   The splendor of the Queen's coronation was without comparison.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 1, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.

3. Great fame or glory.

Splendor is the standard spelling in American English. Splendour is correct in modern British and Commonwealth English.

• speldron

From splendeō + -or.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈspɫɛn.dɔr]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈsplɛn.dor]

splendor m (genitive splendōris); third declension

1. sheen, brightness, brilliance, luster, splendor
2. renown, fame

Third-declension noun.

• “splendor”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “splendor”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891), An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• Carl Meißner; Henry William Auden (1894), Latin Phrase-Book‎^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.
  • to sully one's fair fame: vitae splendori(em) maculas(is) aspergere
    

• esplendor
• esplendur
• splandor
• splendur

Borrowed from Latin splendor.

splendor oblique singular, f (oblique plural splendors, nominative singular splendor, nominative plural splendors)

1. splendor (brilliant brightness)

• French: splendeur
• → English: splendor, splendour

• Frédéric Godefroy (1880–1902), “splendor”, in Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle […], Paris: F[riedrich] Vieweg; Émile Bouillon, →OCLC.

Learned borrowing from Latin splendor.

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛndɔr
• Syllabification: splen‧dor

splendor m inan (related adjective splendorny)

1. splendor (magnificent appearance, display or grandeur)
2. privilege, honor

• “splendor”, in Wielki słownik języka polskiego‎^[2] (in Polish), Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• “splendor”, in Polish dictionaries at PWN‎^[3] (in Polish)
• “*SPLENDOR”, in Elektroniczny Słownik Języka Polskiego XVII i XVIII Wieku [Electronic Dictionary of the Polish Language of the XVII and XVIII Century], 10.12.2008