Bright
Old English beorht, of Germanic origin.
wiktionary
The adjective is derived from Middle English bright(“giving off much light; of colour or light: brilliant, intense; brightly lit; gleaming, shining; glorious, resplendent; of a person: beautiful, fair, rosy; wonderful; clear; of eyesight: keen; (figuratively) free from sin; enlightened”)[and other forms], [1] from Old English bryht, breht(Northumbrian), a metathetic variant of byrht(Anglian), beorht(West Saxon), berht(“bright, clear”)[and other forms] from Proto-West Germanic *berht, [2] from Proto-Germanic *berhtaz(“bright, shining”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerHǵ-(“to shine, to gleam, whiten”).
The noun is derived from Middle English bright(“brightness, brilliance; daylight; light”), from bright(adjective): [3] see above.
The English word is cognate with Albanian bardhë(“white”), Dutch brecht(in personal names), Icelandic bjartur(“bright”), Lithuanian brekšta(“to dawn”), Middle Irish brafad(“blink of an eye”), Norwegian bjart(“bright, clear, shining”), Persian برازیدن (barâzidan, “to beautify; to befit”), Russian бре́зжить(brézžitʹ, “to dawn; to flicker faintly, glimmer; (figuratively) of a hope, thought, etc.: to begin to manifest, emerge”), Sanskrit भ्राजते(bhrājate), Scots bricht(“bright”), Welsh berth(“beautiful, fair, fine”)(obsolete).
From Middle English brighte(“brightly; (figuratively) brilliantly, lustrously; of colour: boldly, vividly; clearly, distinctly; of voice: loudly”)[and other forms], [4] from Old English breohte, beorhte(West Saxon)[and other forms], ultimately from Proto-Germanic *berhtaz(“bright, shining”); [5] see further at etymology 1.
From Middle English brighten(“to illuminate; to become light, dawn; (figuratively) to cleanse, purify; to clarify, explain”)[and other forms], [6] from Old English beorhtian(“to brighten, shine; to sound clearly or loudly”)[and other forms], probably from beorht(“bright, clear”, adjective) (see further at etymology 1) + -ian( suffix forming verbs from adjectives and nouns). Later uses of the word are probably also derived from the adjective. [7]
etymonline
bright (adj.)
"radiating or reflecting light," Old English bryht, metathesis of beorht "bright; splendid; clear-sounding; beautiful; divine," from Proto-Germanic *berhtaz "bright" (source also of Old Saxon berht, Old Norse bjartr, Old High German beraht, Gothic bairhts "bright"), from PIE root *bhereg- "to shine; bright, white." Meaning "quick-witted, having brilliant mental qualities" is from 1741.
The Germanic word was commonly used to form given names, and figures in the etymology of Robert, Albert, Bertha, Egbert, Gilbert, Herbert, Hubert, Lambert. In modern German it survives in names only (Albrecht, Ruprecht) and has been otherwise lost.
