Isn't it amazing how easy it is to overuse the word amazing? Prodigious is a more specific descriptor. Like amazing, prodigious conveys a sense of wonder, but it is used to comment on the size, amount, extent, or degree of what is being described. Items described as prodigious are extraordinary by one of these measures, as a musician with prodigious talent, a research grant of a prodigious amount, or a career notable for its prodigious output.

To illuminate is to supply with light or to light up. But this verb is not used in exactly the same way as the much more general verb light. For instance, light is more appropriate to talk about the action of igniting or setting something to burn, as a candle. But illuminate is more appropriate for talking about what that lit candle will do: illuminate the room! Stars illuminate the night sky, just as festive lights illuminate residential streets during the holidays. To illuminate a path forward is to shed light on the best course of action—unless of course the path is a literal one from, say, the mailbox to the front door after sunset. In which case, a flashlight should do the trick! Illuminate can also refer to shedding light on a subject, as if to make it more clear or comprehensible.

To call something poignant is to emphasize how deeply affecting or moving it is emotionally. This adjective conveys a sharpness of feeling that the more general adjective moving does not, a distinction that makes sense if you consider the full picture of the word: poignant entered English describing sensations that were painful or distressing and smells that were particularly pungent. Poignant has softened over time. Nowadays when we describe things as poignant we don’t mean they bring distress; we mean they are touching and often bittersweet.