glühenden

Glühenden is the inflected form of the German adjective glühend, meaning glowing or incandescent. The word comes from glühen, to glow, and is used to describe objects that emit light due to heat, such as embers, metal, or lights. In German, adjectives change their endings according to case, number, and gender, so glühend appears in several forms including glühend, glühende, glühendes and glühenden depending on context.

In attributive use, glühenden appears as one of several endings the adjective can take. Common examples include den glühenden Mann (accusative masculine singular with a definite article), der glühenden Kohle (dative feminine singular with a definite article), die glühenden Kohlen (nominative plural), and mit glühenden Kohlen (dative plural after a preposition). After an indefinite article or no article, other endings would be used (for instance, eine glühende Kohle or glühende Kohlen in plain plural form). These variations reflect German’s system of strong and weak adjective inflection.

As a present participle used as an adjective, glühenden typically describes something currently emitting light from heat. It is distinct from the past participle geglüht, which marks a completed action of glühen. In practice, glühenden is most often encountered in descriptive phrases rather than as a finite verb form.

Typical contexts include descriptions of fire, metalworking, and lighting where heat causes visible glow. The term can also appear in metaphorical uses, such as describing passion or intense energy, though in such cases the sense remains anchored in the idea of brightness or heat. See also glühen for the verb’s basic meaning and geglüht for the past participle form.