light
[ɫɐɪt]
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.33 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range visible to the human eye (about 400–750 nanometers): visible light.
Uncountable
noun
Electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range visible to the human eye or in nearby ranges (infrared or ultraviolet radiation).
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "As you can see, this spacious dining-room gets a lot of light in the mornings."
- "Then came a maid with hand-bag and shawls, and after her a tall young lady. She stood for a moment holding her skirt above the grimy steps,[…], and the light of the reflector fell full upon her."
- "Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light."
- "[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages."
- "When the studio light is on, I am recording my evening show."
- "black light"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *lewk-der. Proto-Indo-European *lewk-to-s Proto-Germanic *leuhtaz Proto-West Germanic *leuht Old English lēoht Middle English light English light From Middle English light, liht, leoht, from Old English lēoht, from Proto-West Germanic *leuht, from Proto-Germanic *leuhtą, from Proto-Indo-European *lewktom, from the root *lewk- (“to shine”). Cognates * Scots licht (“light”) * Saterland Frisian Ljoacht, Lucht (“light”) * West Frisian ljocht (“light”) * Dutch licht (“light”) * German Licht (“light”) * German Low German Licht (“light”) * Limburgish Leech, Leet, Léït (“light”) * Luxembourgish Liicht (“light”) * Vilamovian łicht (“light”) * Yiddish ליכט (likht, “light”) * Danish and Norwegian Bokmål lys (“light”) * Elfdalian liuos (“light”) * Faroese and Icelandic ljós (“light”) * Norwegian Nynorsk ljos, ljus, lys (“light”) * Swedish ljus (“light”) * Latin lūx (“light”) * Russian луч (luč, “beam of light”) * Armenian լույս (luys, “light”) * Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós, “white”) * Persian رُخش (roxš).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: [ɫɐɪt]
- British English: [laɪt]
Usage
Subject
Wiktionary places this term in People.
Inflected Forms
lights (plural)
lite (alternative, archaic)
lighte (alternative, obsolete)
lyght (alternative, obsolete)
lyghte (alternative, obsolete)
licht (alternative, Scotland)
lights (present, singular)
lighting (participle, present)
lit (participle, past)
lit (past)
lighted (participle, past)
lighted (past, uncommon)