• (America) IPA: /ˈlʌstɚ/

From Middle French lustre, from roa-oit lustro, from roa-oit lustrare, from Latin lūstrō, from Latin lūstrum.

luster (American spelling)

1. The ability or condition of shining when light is applied, inclusive of shine, sheen, polish, gloss, sparkle, etc.

   metallic luster

   pearly luster

   the diamond's luster

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:

     And over all the fields themselves did muster,
     With bils and glayves making a dreadfull luster;
     That forst at first those knights backe to retyre:
     As when the wrathfull Boreas doth bluster,
     Nought may abide the tempest of his yre,
     Both man and beast doe fly, and succour doe inquyre.

     Indianapolis: Hackett, 2006, p. 162

   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene vii]:

     First Servant: O, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left
     To see some mischief on him. O! [Dies.
     Cornwall: Lest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!
     Where is thy lustre now?
     Gloucester: All dark and comfortless.

   • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC ↗, lines 846-850:

     […] abashed the devil stood,
     And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
     Virtue in her shape how lovely, saw, and pined
     His loss; but chiefly to find here observed
     His lustre visibly impaired; yet seemed
     Undaunted. […]

   • 1717, Joseph Addison, Metamorphoses Book III, The Story of Cadmus,

     The scorching sun was mounted high, / In all its lustre, to the noonday sky.

   • 1810, William Blake, Milton: A Poem in Two Books, Book I, 1-5:

     Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poet’s Song!
     Record the journey of immortal Milton through your realms
     Of terror & mild moony lustre, in soft sexual delusions
     Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose
     His burning thirst & freezing hunger! […]

   • 1904–1907 (date written), James Joyce, “The Dead”, in Dubliners, London: Grant Richards, published June 1914, →OCLC ↗:

     Gabriel coloured as if he felt he had made a mistake and, without looking at her, kicked off his goloshes and flicked actively with his muffler at his patent-leather shoes. […] When he had flicked lustre into his shoes he stood up and pulled his waistcoat down more tightly on his plump body.

   • 1922, E. R. Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros, Chapter VIII,‎:

     The canopy above the bed was a mosaic of tiny stones, jet, serpentine, dark hyacinth, black marble, bloodstone, and lapis lazuli, so confounded in a maze of altering hue and lustre that they might mock the palpitating sky of night.

   • 2001, James Wood, Introduction to Saul Bellow, Collected Stories, New York: Viking, p. xvii,

     Curiously enough, the stream of consciousness, for all its reputation as the great accelerator of description, actually slows down realism, asks it to dawdle over tiny remembrances, tiny details and lusters, to circle and return.

2. (figurative) Shining light, luminosity, brightness, shine.

   the sun's luster

   the luster of the minor stars

3. (figurative) Shining beauty, splendor, attractiveness or attraction.

   After so many years in the same field, the job had lost its luster.

   • 1970, S.Y. Agnon, "Agunot" in Twenty-One Stories, New York: Schocken Books, p. 30,

     Their days of rest are wrested from them, their feasts are fasts, their lot is dust instead of luster.

4. (figurative) Shining fame, renown, glory.

   After the scandal, the idol lost his luster and could only get work in Vegas.

   • 1895, The Gentleman's Magazine, volume 279, page 602 ↗:

     […] whose ancestors, says Clarendon, had been transported out of Normandy with the Conqueror, "and had continued," says Sir Henry Wotton, "about the space of four hundred years, rather without obscurity than with any great lustre […] ".

5. (figurative) Polish, social refinement.

   Sure, the posh git spoke with fine lustre. 'S all a load of bollocks, though, innit?

6. A thing exhibiting luster, particularly
   1. (literary) Any shining body or thing.
   2. A piece of glass added to a light (especially a chandelier) to increase its luster.
      • 1735, Alexander Pope, The First Satire of the Second Book of Horace Imitated, 45-48:

        Each mortal has his pleasure: none deny
        Scarsdale his bottle, Darty his ham-pie;
        Ridotta sips and dances, till she see
        The doubling lustres dance as fast as she;

   3. An ornamental light providing luster, especially a chandelier.
      • 1905, Thomas Mann, “The Blood of the Walsungs”, in H.T. Lowe-Porter, transl., Death in Venice & Seven Other Stories, New York: Vintage, published 1954, page 294:

        The immense room was carpeted, the walls were covered with eighteenth-century panelling, and three electric lustres hung from the ceiling.

   4. A substance that imparts luster to a surface, inclusive of polish, gloss, plumbago, glaze, etc.
   5. The layer of an object that imparts luster, chiefly with regard to ceramics.
   6. Clipping of lusterware: highly lustrous ceramics.
   7. A kind of lustrous fabric with a wool weft and cotton, linen, or silk warp, chiefly used for women's dresses.
   8. (obsolete) A glory, an act or thing that imparts fame or renown.

• (antonym(s) of “brilliance”): dullness

• French: lustre, éclat
• German: Glanz, Lüster
• Russian: блеск
• Spanish: lustre

• French: éclat
• Portuguese: lustre
• Spanish: lustre

• French: lustre
• German: Lüster, Glanz
• Italian: lustro
• Portuguese: lustre
• Russian: блеск
• Spanish: lustre

luster (lusters, present participle lustering; simple past and past participle lustered) (American spelling)

1. (intransitive, now rare) To have luster, to gleam, to shine.
   • 1729, Richard Savage, The Wanderer, Sect. iii, l. 326:

     What bloom, what brightness lusters o'er her cheeks!

2. (intransitive, now rare) To gain luster, to become lustrous.
3. (transitive) To give luster, particularly
   1. (obsolete) To make illustrious or attractive, to distinguish.
   2. To coat with a lustrous material or glaze, to impart physical luster to an object.
      • 1985, Nadine Gordimer, “Sins of the Third Age”, in Something Out There, Penguin, page 69:

        Peter and Mania found a pensione whose view was of chestnut woods and a horizon looped by peaks lustred with last winter's snow, distant in time as well as space.

4. (transitive, obsolete) To shed light on, to illustrate, to show.
5. (transitive, obsolete) Synonym of lustrate, particularly
   1. Synonym of purify, to ritually cleanse or renew.
   2. Synonym of look, to look over, to survey.

• (To give luster to) lustrate (obsolete)

• Spanish: brillar

• Spanish: lustrar

From Middle English lustre, from Latin lustrum, from itc-ola *loustrom, of uncertain origin.

luster (plural lusters)

1. Alternative form of lustrum: A five-year period, especially (historical) in Roman contexts.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC ↗, partition II, section 4, member 2, subsection ii:

     Mesue and some other Arabians began to reject and reprehend it; upon whose authority, for many following lusters, it was much debased and quite out of request […].

From .

luster (plural lusters)

1. (now rare) One who lusts, one inflamed with lust.
   • 1591, John Lyly, Endimion, sig. E4v:

     Eumenides But did neuer any Louers come hether?
     Geron Lusters, but not Louers.

   • 1867-1872, Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Testimonies against the Jews

     Neither fornicators, nor those who serve idols, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor the lusters after mankind […] shall obtain the kingdom of God.

From Latin lustrum.

luster (plural lusters)

1. (obsolete) Synonym of den: a dwelling-place in a wilderness, especially for animals.

Borrowed from German Luster or, possibly, a variant of Lester.

1. Surname.