LIGHTENING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Lightening

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/lˈaɪtənɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Lighten v. t.

To make light or clear; to light; to illuminate; as, to lighten an apartment with lamps or gas; to lighten the streets. (In this sense less common than light.) "A key of fire ran all along the shore, And lightened all the river with a blaze."

To illuminate with knowledge; to enlighten. (In this sense less common than enlighten.) "Lighten my spirit with one clear heavenly ray."

To emit or disclose in, or as in, lightning; to flash out, like lightning. "His eye... lightens forth Controlling majesty."

To free from trouble and fill with joy. "They looked unto him, and were lightened."

Lighten v. t.

To make lighter, or less heavy; to reduce in weight; to relieve of part of a load or burden; as, to lighten a ship by unloading; to lighten a load or burden.

To make less burdensome or afflictive; to alleviate; as, to lighten the cares of life or the burden of grief.

To cheer; to exhilarate. "Lightens my humor with his merry jests."

Lighten v. i. To descend; to light. "O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us."

Lighten v. i. (past & past part. lightened; pres. part. lightening)

To burst forth or dart, as lightning; to shine with, or like, lightning; to display a flash or flashes of lightning; to flash. "This dreadful night, That thunders, lightens, opens graves, and roars As doth the lion."

To grow lighter; to become less dark or lowering; to brighten; to clear, as the sky.

noun

lightening n. The process of changing to a lighter color.

Synonyms: whitening.

See images of 'Lightening'

Etymology of 'Lightening'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Lightening" Quotes from Famous Books

... employed in it on one side or the other. I should therefore be glad to know, Mr. Yorke, do you see, whether this be the case." Playfully denying that he possessed any celebrity as a writer on legal matters, Yorke, with an assumption of candor, admitted that he had some thoughts of lightening the labors of law-students by turning Coke upon Littleton into verse. Indeed, he confessed that he had already begun the work of versification. Not seeing the nature of the reply, Sir Lyttleton Powys ...

— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... discovery of the age, and so simple in application that the marvel is that it has escaped us so long. The lightening power of magnetism has been known for years, the greatest saving power to overcome gravity, but it seems it had to wait for ...

— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting

... joined her again, she had driven away her own. The sky was changing mysteriously. The purple depth was lightening, ...

— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... spurred on at a gallop, finding some relief in the pounding action of the saddle and in the rush of air past his ears. The moon was late, but when it came it seemed to help him, lightening his mood as it lightened the trail. The big ledges and lowering, lesser peaks lifted into the dark sky weirdly translucent, and their upper edges seemed smooth and graceful as the rims of bubbles. Solid rock seemed melted and transfused with light and air. It was ...

— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland

... swirls of the current, the blur of trees on either bank, were signs to the bowman. He rose in his place. A thrust of the steel-shod pole at a rock in mid-stream—the rock raced past; a throb of the keel to the live waters below—the bowman crouches back, lightening the prow just as a rider "lifts" his horse to the leap; a sudden splash—the thing has happened—the canoe has run the ...

— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut

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