Daylight

How to spell daylight

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce daylight

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does daylight mean?

1. nounThe natural light of the day, or the period when this light is present.

Daylight in a sentence

• The curtains let in plenty of daylight each morning.

• The hikers wanted to reach the cabin before daylight faded.

Where does daylight come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Daylight is a transparent compound of two very old native English words, day and light, both inherited from Old English. Day descends from dæg, the word for the period of natural light between sunrise and sunset, while light comes from leoht, meaning brightness or illumination. The two were joined into the compound dæges leoht, literally 'the light of day', and the word is recorded in English from the medieval period onward. Because both halves are common, familiar words, the spelling holds no real surprises beyond remembering that it is written solid as one word rather than as two. Over time daylight also picked up vivid figurative uses, such as 'seeing daylight' for noticing progress and 'beat the living daylights out of' someone, where daylights once jokingly meant a person's eyes or vital organs.

How the word is built

• day (Old English dæg, the period of light)
• light (Old English leoht, brightness)