Light

How to spell light

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce light

What does light mean?

1. nounBrightness or radiance that makes things visible, whether from the sun, a flame, or a lamp.
2. adjectiveHaving little weight; easy to lift or carry.
3. verbTo set something burning or to make it begin to glow.

Light in a sentence

• noun

  Morning light flooded through the kitchen window.

• adjective

  The new laptop is remarkably light and slips into any bag.

• verb

  She used a long match to light the candles on the table.

• noun

  She switched on the desk light to read the contract.

• adjective

  He packed a light suitcase for the weekend trip.

• verb

  They paused to light the campfire before dusk.

Where does light come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word actually merges two related Old English forms that ended up spelled the same way. The illumination sense comes from Old English leoht, meaning 'brightness' or 'daylight', which traces back to a Proto-Germanic root and ultimately to an ancient Indo-European root meaning 'to shine'; that same root gives Latin lux and lumen and the modern words 'lucid' and 'illuminate'. The 'not heavy' sense comes from a separate Old English word, leoht in the sense of 'having little weight', from a different Proto-Germanic root meaning 'easy' or 'nimble'. The spelling kept the troublesome 'gh', a relic of a guttural sound that was once actually pronounced in words like 'light', 'night', and 'knight' but later fell silent, leaving the cluster as a pure orthographic trap. By the medieval period both senses had collapsed into one spelling, so a single written word now covers brightness, low weight, and the act of setting alight.

How the word is built

• light (from Old English leoht: brightness; later also 'not heavy')

Words that sound like light

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• lite: Marketed as having fewer calories, less fat, or reduced strength than the standard version.