verb, transitive. To emit energy, especially light or heat, in the form of rays or waves. Of a person, to clearly emanate a strong feeling or quality through the expression or bearing. Of a feeling or quality, to emanate clearly from.
Verb, intransitive. To diverge or spread from or as if from a central point.
Also an adjective.
"Here's the abstract piece our teacher had us do," her mother said, extracting the watercolor from within the stack and holding it up.
Liz caught her breath as she gazed at it. Broad strokes of color, varying shades of blue, framed a rectangle of palest yellow.
"I haven't given it a title yet."
Liz shook her head. "You don't have to. You can just call it 'Untitled number one,' or maybe just 'Untitled,' since it's your first."
"She also told us that everyone who looks at it will interpret the image in his own way," her mother said.
"I agree. It's the front door of my house," Liz stated. Her mother turned from the painting and looked at Liz with raised eyebrows. Liz, too, looked away from the painting. She smiled.
She was thinking of how sometimes, on Saturday, no one in the family would remember to walk to the end of the driveway to see if any mail had been delivered. Sometimes, no one would remember about the mail until after sunset. The watercolor reminded her of the way the open door appeared as she made her way back to the house along the rutted lane, surrounded by oaks heavy with leaves that hung still in the peaceful air that sunset always brought--a pause in the wind that occurred between daylight and full darkness. The doorway radiated light as she approached, beckoning her with a reminder of the warmth and life that awaited within.
Definitions adapted from The New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, Inc., 2005 (eBook Edition, copyright 2008), and from Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA, 1965, depending on which is more convenient to hand.
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