Dictionary

sheet lightning en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) A broad flash of lightning, with no visible bolt, due to reflection.
   • It probably belongs to the class we are accustomed to call sheet lightnings, for these are by far the most frequent in an ordinary storm. 1859 October 14, “Marvels of Thunder-Storms”, in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, page 216:
   • K'iche' diviners believe that they have a kind of soul in their blood in the form of sheet lightning. 2014, Karen Bassie-Sweet, Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities, page 95:
   • He was silent for a long time, redreaming the dreams that he had dreamed eight years ago, but through them all ran, as sheet-lightning through golden cloud, the light of Mrs. Hauksbee's violet eyes. 1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 36:
   • In most very warm days in summer the thermometer stands above 70 degrees on the scale of Fahrenheit, about the centre of the county; in the summer of 1811, it stood repeatedly above 80°; and on the 25th of May, 1807, during the time when the sheet lightning of tropical regions appeared, about three in the afternoon, it stood at 92° in the shade within three miles of Moffat! 1812, General view of the agriculture, state of property, and improvements in the county of Dumfries:
   • The occurrence of sheet lightning in a particular district did not necessarily involve that a thunderstorm was experienced there, for it frequently happened that the storm was a long way off. 1890 January 14, William Marriott, “Second report of the thunderstorm committee”, in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, volume 16, number 73:

Forms

Coordinates

heat lightning

Translations (10)

nv atsoolaghał (broad flash of lightning) · ca llampec (broad flash of lightning) · fi pilvisalama (broad flash of lightning) · is snæljós (broad flash of lightning) · is snæleifur (broad flash of lightning) · de Wetterleuchten (broad flash of lightning) · bg зарево (broad flash of lightning) · fi elosalama (broad flash of lightning) · kw kòlebron (broad flash of lightning) · mi rapa (broad flash of lightning)