Other forms: lights, lighting, lit, lighter, lighted, lightest
Light is what lets your eyes see — the sun through a window, a lamp switched on in a dark room. Morning light across the kitchen table, the light of a phone screen in bed.
A light is also the thing giving it out: turn the lights off, wait at the traffic lights, leave the light on in the hall. As a verb you light a candle or a fire. Then a whole second family with the same spelling: light means weighing very little — a light bag, light as a feather — and stretches from there to light rain, a light meal, light reading, light blue. The two families share nothing but their letters, and English will happily put them in one sentence: a light bulb light enough to hold in one hand.
1nounlightThe brightness that makes it possible to see.~75%
“There was just enough light to read by.”
synonyms: brightness, glow
2nounlampA lamp or other device that gives out light.~10%
“Turn the lights off when you leave the room.”
3verbsetTo set something burning, or to fill a place with brightness.~2%
“He struck a match to light the candles on the table.”
4adjectiveweightWeighing very little; easy to lift or carry.~9%
“The chair is light enough to carry upstairs on your own.”
5adjectivepalePale in colour.~2%
“She wore a light blue shirt and no jacket.”
6adjectivesmallSmall in amount, or not serious.~2%
“We had a light lunch and walked on.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
The bright light runs straight back through Old English lēoht and Proto-Germanic *leuhtą to the Indo-European root *lewk-, which meant to shine. Every step of that chain is the same word worn smoother: leuhtą, lēoht, light. The light that means not heavy is a separate word that ended up at the same spelling.
Proto-Indo-European
*lewk-
Middle English
light
English, today
light
Built from
From Middle English light. From Middle English light, liht, leoht, from Old English lēoht, from Proto-West Germanic leuht, from Proto-Germanic leuhtą, from Proto-Indo-European lewktom, from the root lewk- (“to shine”). 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA