Light Meaning

/laɪt/
A1

Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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nounElectromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range visible to the human eye (about 400–750 nanometers): visible light.

nounElectromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range visible to the human eye or in nearby ranges (infrared or ultraviolet radiation).

It's just five in the morning, but nevertheless it is light out.
A child is not a vessel for filling, but a fire to light.
The photochemical reactions transform the light into electrical impulses.
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
CEFR Practice Quiz
The package was very ____, so she could carry it with one hand easily.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please turn off the ____ when you leave the room to save energy and reduce the overall utility costs tonight.

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *lewk-der. 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).

"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:
"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:
"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:

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CEFR Practice Quiz
The package was very ____, so she could carry it with one hand easily.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Please turn off the ____ when you leave the room to save energy and reduce the overall utility costs tonight.

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