1. The SI unit of illuminance, symbol lx, equal to one lumen per metre squared. The plural is unchanged lux.

Average light intensities are, very roughly:

  • 100 lx inside a house
  • 300 ~ 500 lx in a workplace
  • 2 000 lx outside on a dull winter's day
  • 10 000 lx outside on a bright summer's day
The eyes adjust so that the difference in illuminance does not seem so enormous; also (thanks, Oolong) illuminance is perceived logarithmically.

2. A brand of soap. (You knew that.)

Lux is the star of Martin Millar's excellent Lux the Poet and co-star of his comic book Lux and Alby Sign On and Save The Universe. He is a disconcertingly attractive, outrageously vain young man with a shock of red and yellow hair and a head full of drugs and poetry.

Lux spends most of the novel stumbling around Brixton with a riot going on around him, trying to get on television and to find the love of his life, Pearl, and make sure she is safe. Pearl is a confirmed lesbian but, says Lux, 'everyone knows that that kind of thing doesn't apply to young poets in love'.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman, Lucifer opens a nightclub named Lux after retiring as ruler of Hell and handing his key over to the Dream King to take care of. The devil plays the piano and looks after the running of the place; a devoted demon lover works in the bar, keeping the hideously deformed half of her face always hidden behind a mask. In The Kindly Ones, Lyta Hall is attending a job interview at the Lux when her child is taken captive.

Lux (?), v. t. [Cf. F. luxer. See Luxate.]

To put out of joint; to luxate.

[Obs.]

 

© Webster 1913.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.