light – English noun declension

English noun forms of light

Noun: light
Singularlight
Plurallights

Sample 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. [1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:]
  • Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light. [1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:]
  • [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. [2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:]
  • When the studio light is on, I am recording my evening show. [2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)]
  • black light
  • It’s everywhere. At this moment, as you sit quietly reading this book, you are awash in it. At work, it’s emanating from your electronic devices; step outside for lunch, and the sun bathes you in it. You may receive an extra dose of it when you visit your doctor, pass through security at the airport, or drive through city streets, but minuscule amounts of it are with you always. You cannot see, hear, smell, or feel it, but there is never a single second when it is not flying through your body. Too much of it will kill you, but without it you wouldn’t live a year. “Invisible light” seems like a contradiction. Like Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence,” it’s an oxymoron. We think of light, by definition, as something seen, something that enables our seeing, illuminating the darkness. Unlike dogs, who sniff in order to “get” what an object is, we depend on vision above all our other senses. We rely on light to tell us about our surroundings. But just as there are frequencies of sound audible to other animals that we cannot hear, there is a whole world of light outside our range of vision, a world that is humming with activity. Though we rarely think about this invisible world, our way of life depends on it. It’s because of invisible light that you can do things such as send a text message, use GPS to find your way to a friend’s house, listen to the radio, or microwave a frozen pizza. Invisible light shows us things we would never otherwise see, including our own skeletons and brains and the history of our universe. I was reminded of just how much we rely on invisible light, and how mysterious it remains to us, during a visit from my sister and her family. It was a lazy summer afternoon, and we were sprawled across a few couches sharing a bowl of popcorn. My niece, her shoulders crimson after a day outdoors, was chatting on her cell phone, holding up a promising finger to her mother, who was scolding her for not using sunscreen. My brother-in-law, meanwhile, was asking my opinion on an article he’d read proposing that Wi-Fi be banned in schools because of its dangers. We were all depending on invisible light (for the microwave popcorn, the cell-phone service) while being concerned that it might harm us (sunburn, mysterious Wi-Fi health threats) and confused about what to do to protect ourselves. We need it, and it surrounds us, yet we remain uneasy about living with invisible light, partly because we fear what is unknown. After all, most of us don’t know much about “all the light we cannot see.” This book aims to change that. My hope is to expose the hidden side of the spectrum, to make the invisible (at least temporarily) visible and vivid to you. [2017, Bob Berman, Zapped: From Infrared to X-rays, the Curious History of Invisible Light, Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN, pages 8-9:]
  • Put that light out!
  • And the light ſhineth in darkneſſe, and the darkneſſe compꝛehended it not. [1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, John 1:5:]
  • He was thinking; but the glory of the song, the swell from the great organ, the clustered lights, […], the height and vastness of this noble fane, its antiquity and its strength—all these things seemed to have their part as causes of the thrilling emotion that accompanied his thoughts. [1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter V, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:]
  • We turned off all the lights and went to sleep.
  • The ceiling lights were off, but I knew the narrow light spilling from the lamp on my bureau would be enough for her to see the pale red marks on my chest, which had been fading for so long they had gone back to being shiny again. [2016 August 7, Jameson Rich, “The Shirt Stays On”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 25 Nov 2022:]
  • To get to our house, turn right at the third light.
  • Can you throw any light on this problem?
  • He shall never know / That I had any light of this from thee. [c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:]
  • A sudden light broke upon him and he repeated the first line with expression. [1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries:]
  • Greatly interested in these differences—some of them so great that they led me to seek exchanges of light with Englishmen—I looked for some work that would describe and account for them with a show of completeness, and perhaps depict the process of their origin. [[1921 [1919], H. L. Mencken, The American Language, 2nd edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, →OCLC:]
  • Now these notions are twofold, actions or habits[…], which are durable lights and notions, which we may use when we will. [1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:]
  • "Well, there's her statement of her case, and according to her lights, it's a just one. She's got a slum-bred mind." [1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 164:]
  • Picasso was one of the leading lights of the cubist movement.
  • Joan of Arc, a light of ancient France [1842, Alfred Tennyson, “A Dream of Fair Women”, in Poems. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:]
  • I'm really seeing you in a different light today.
  • Magoon's governorship in Cuba was viewed in a negative light by many Cuban historians for years thereafter.
  • Frequent consideration of a thing […] shows it in its several lights and various ways of appearance. [1692–1717, Robert South, “Why Christ’s Doctrine was Rejected by the Jews”, in Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:]
  • Thy ſteddy Temper, Portius,
  • Can look on Guilt, Rebellion, Fraud, and Cæſar,
  • In the calm Lights of mild Philoſophy; […] [1712 (date written), [Joseph] Addison, Cato, a Tragedy. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […], published 1713, →OCLC, Act I, scene i, page 1:]
  • Now if there was one thing that the animals were completely certain of, it was that they did not want Jones back. When it was put to them in this light, they had no more to say. [1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:]
  • "There will, I expect, be many such - possibly whole cities in flames - when we consider how many folk may have dropped with lights in their hands." [1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:]
  • Hey, buddy, you got a light?
  • a Bengal light
  • This facade has eight south-facing lights.
  • The average length of a light on a 15×15 grid is 7 or 8.
  • The duke yet would have dark deeds darkly answered; he would never bring them to light. [c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:]
  • My heart panteth, my strength faileth me: as for the light of mine eies, it also is gone from me. [1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Psalms 38:10:]
  • He seemed to find his way without his eyes; / For out o'door he went without their helps, / And, to the last, bended their light on me. [c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:]

Etymology

1. Etymology tree
2. Proto-Indo-European *lewk-der.
3. Proto-Indo-European *lewk-to-s
4. Proto-Germanic *leuhtaz
5. Proto-West Germanic *leuht
6. Old English lēoht
7. Middle English light
8. English light
9. 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”).
10. Cognates
11. * Scots licht (“light”)
12. * Saterland Frisian Ljoacht, Lucht (“light”)
13. * West Frisian ljocht (“light”)
14. * Dutch licht (“light”)
15. * German Licht (“light”)
16. * German Low German Licht (“light”)
17. * Limburgish Leech, Leet, Léït (“light”)
18. * Luxembourgish Liicht (“light”)
19. * Vilamovian łicht (“light”)
20. * Yiddish ליכט (likht, “light”)
21. * Danish and Norwegian Bokmål lys (“light”)
22. * Elfdalian liuos (“light”)
23. * Faroese and Icelandic ljós (“light”)
24. * Norwegian Nynorsk ljos, ljus, lys (“light”)
25. * Swedish ljus (“light”)
26. * Latin lūx (“light”)
27. * Russian луч (luč, “beam of light”)
28. * Armenian լույս (luys, “light”)
29. * Ancient Greek λευκός (leukós, “white”)
30. * Persian رُخش (roxš). See: Middle English Nouns 'light', Dutch Nouns 'licht', German Nouns 'Licht', Norwegian Nynorsk Nouns 'ljos', Swedish Nouns 'ljus', Latin Nouns 'lūx', Russian Nouns 'луч'.

Verbs referencing "light"

English Nouns lux, Latin Nouns lux, German Nouns Licht, Polish Nouns łuczywo, Danish Nouns lygte.