Dictionary

rushlight en · NOUN

Etymology

From rush + light.

Meanings

1. (historical) A type of inexpensive candle formed by soaking the dried pith of the rush plant in fat or grease, which emits light for a relatively short period of time.
   • The rushlight was her friend, and aided her to pass the long, long hours before midnight, for it was enclosed within its accustomed tin cage; […] 1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XI, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 198–199:
   • As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in, before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those virtuous days. 1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations:
   • After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick, and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them in order. 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Crawley of Queen’s Crawley”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 61:
   • The nights were almost at their longest now, and the cold was very great; but the watchers piled fresh logs upon the fire, and talked quietly to each other as they sat in the dancing glow--for the rushlight had long since gone out. 1901, Evelyn Everett-Green, In the Wars of the Roses:

Forms

Translations (2)

ga geataire (type of inexpensive candle) · cy cannwyll frwyn (type of inexpensive candle)