Other forms: brighter, brightest
Bright means giving out or full of strong light — a bright light, a bright room, a bright morning. It also describes strong clear colour: bright red, bright yellow.
The second big sense is about people: a bright child is clever and quick, and bright as a compliment for intelligence is warm and slightly informal. There is a third, about mood and prospects: a bright smile, the future looks bright. Note bright and early, meaning very early in the morning, and look on the bright side, which is what people say when there is not much of one. The noun is brightness and the verb is brighten.
1adjectivebrightGiving out or filled with strong light.
“The kitchen is bright all morning.”
synonyms: luminous, well-lit
2adjectivecolourOf colour, strong and vivid.
“She was wearing a bright green coat.”
3adjectivecleverClever and quick to learn.
“He is a bright boy and bored half the time.”
4adjectivecheerfulCheerful, or full of promise.
“The outlook is a little brighter than last year.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
bright is a quality of light or intelligence.
Old English beorht comes from a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to shine or gleam, which also gives the name Bertha and the -bert in Albert and Robert — all of them meaning bright. It is one of the oldest colour-and-light words English has.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰerHǵ- — to gleam, shine, whiten
Proto-Germanic
*berhtaz — bright
Proto-West Germanic
*berht
Old English
berht
Middle English
bright
English, today
bright
The adjective is from Middle English bright, from Old English berht, beorht, bryht, byrht, from Proto-West Germanic berht, from Proto-Germanic berhtaz (“bright”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European bʰerHǵ- (“to gleam, shine, whiten”). The noun is derived from Middle English bright (“brightness, brilliance; daylight; light”), from bright: see above. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA