nightlight
See also: night light
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]nightlight (plural nightlights)
- a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight
- 1925, D. H. Lawrence, chapter XVIII, in Louis L. Martz, editor, Quetzalcoatl, New York: New Directions, published 1998, page 310:
- She had brought in with her the night-light that had been burning outside her door. She blew it out.
- 1974, Anne Sexton, “The Fury of Overshoes”, in The Complete Poems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, published 1981, page 372:
- They made you give up / your nightlight / and your teddy / and your thumb.
- 1988, Joseph Brodsky, "Gorbunov and Gorchakov" Canto 13 in In Urania, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 165,
- Your light cannot drive off the dark from me— / not any more than night-lights by the bed / drive off my dreams.
- He put a small nightlight in the bathroom to find his way around in the dark.
- light that shines at night such as moonlight, starlight, etc.
- 1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure[1], Part Six, Chapter III:
- The floor-cloth deadened his footsteps as he moved in that direction through the obscurity, which was broken only by the faintest reflected night-light from without.
- 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd[2], London: Constable & Co.:
- […] the man held up two small objects faintly twinkling in the nightlight;
- 1980, William Trevor, chapter 4, in Other People's Worlds, Penguin, published 1982, page 79:
- Their made-up faces were garish in the night-light and as they walked they stared fixedly ahead, afraid to make a sideways glance in case it should be called soliciting.
Alternative forms
[edit]Hypernyms
[edit]Translations
[edit]a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight
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