Other forms: alighting, alighted, alights
Alight means on fire, or lit up. A bonfire well alight, a face alight with excitement.
It comes after the noun and never before it: the building was alight, not an alight building. That is worth knowing, because it marks alight as one of a small family of a- adjectives that behave the same way — asleep, awake, afloat, ablaze. The figurative use is the one novels lean on: eyes alight, a room alight with candles. There is also a separate verb alight, meaning to step down from a train or bus, which you will hear in station announcements and almost nowhere else.
Middle English
alighten — to descend from a place: to dismount, get off; to descend to a place: to arrive or stop (at a place); to land; to drop; to attack; of lightning: to strike; to leap on to, mount; to descend in rank; to cause (someone) to lose rank; to come forth, spring from; to alleviate, relieve; (Christianity) of Jesus: to come down to earth from heaven, become incarnate; to descend (to hell); of the Holy Spirit, angels, miracles, etc.: to descend (from heaven); to descend (upon someone); to appear in a place
English, today
alight
From Middle English alighten (“to descend from a place: to dismount, get off; to descend to a place: to arrive or stop (at a place); to land; to drop; to attack; of lightning: to strike; to leap on to, mount; to descend in rank; to cause (someone) to lose rank; to come forth, spring from; to alleviate, relieve; (Christianity) of Jesus: to come down to earth from heaven, become incarnate; to descend (to hell); of the Holy Spirit, angels, miracles, etc.: to descend (from heaven); to descend (upon someone); to appear in a place”)aliȝt, aliȝte, aliȝth, alight, alighte, aliht, alihte, allight, allighten, alliȝt, allyght, allyhte, alyȝt, alyȝte, alyght, alyghte, alyht, alyhte, from a merger of:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 10 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word