sweetness and light
/ˌswiːtnəs n̩ ˈlaɪt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.47 in modern English
25
Scrabble Score
17
Letters
2
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "The Difference is, that inſtead of Dirt and Poiſon, we have rather choſe to fill our Hives with Honey and Wax, thus furniſhing Mankind with the two Nobleſt of Things, which are Sweetneſs and Light."
- "Sorrow and disillusionment racked William Mulliner like a physical pain. That his friends inside there, in spite of the fact that he had been all sweetness and light and had not done a thing to them, should have thrown him out into the hard street was the saddest thing he had ever heard of; and for some minutes he sat there, weeping silently."
- "The working relationship between Amtrak and the contracting railroads, and the Government for that matter, is not, and has never been all sweetness and light, and many railroads still find the passenger train to be a hindrance to the beloved freight."
- "So it transpired, though not everything at Garmisch was sweetness and light. The leader of the British team, Arnold Lunn, the "father of alpine ski racing" and a British public school amateur to the core, was a conservative Catholic who disliked the "professionalism" of National Socialist sport."
- "Mailing lists are not all sweetness and light, though. Joining a mailing list is a little complex. It requires people to know how to join, sign up with an email address, respond to the mail, and know where to send messages."
Etymology
First used by the Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) in A Full and True Account of the Battel Fought Last Friday, between the Antient and the Modern Books in St. James’s Library, known as “The Battle of the Books”, which was originally published in A Tale of a Tub (1704): see the quotation.
Regional Pronunciation
- British English: /ˌswiːtnəs n̩ ˈlaɪt/