Dictionary

nightlight en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• /ˈnaɪtˌlaɪt/ (General-American)

Etymology

From night + light.

Meanings

1. (countable) A small, dim light or lamp left on overnight.
   • He put a small nightlight in the bathroom to find his way around in the dark.
   • 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.
   • They made you give up / your nightlight / and your teddy / and your thumb. 1974, Anne Sexton, “The Fury of Overshoes”, in The Complete Poems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, published 1981, page 372:
   • She had brought in with her the night-light that had been burning outside her door. She blew it out. 1925, D. H. Lawrence, chapter XVIII, in Louis L. Martz, editor, Quetzalcoatl, New York: New Directions, published 1998, page 310:
2. (uncountable) Light that shines at night, such as moonlight or starlight.
   • 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. 1980, William Trevor, chapter 4, in Other People's Worlds, Penguin, published 1982, page 79:
   • […] the man held up two small objects faintly twinkling in the nightlight; 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.:
   • 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. 1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, Part Six, Chapter III:

Forms

Deriveds

nightlighter

Hypernyms

light

Translations (18)

ja 常夜灯 (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · ja 常夜燈 (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · ru ночни́к (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · nl nachtlicht (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · cmn 小燈 /小灯 (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · de Nachtlicht (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · tr gece lambası (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · hu éjjeli fény (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · kw lugarnik (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · ro lampă de veghe (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · cmn 夜燈 /夜灯 (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · fr veilleuse (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · mn шөнийн гэрэл (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · bg дежурна светлина (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · fi yölamppu (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · hu éjjeli lámpa (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · ko 종야등 (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight) · it luce notturna (a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight)