Sunlight
nounThe light that comes from the sun.
How to spell sunlight
8 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce sunlight
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does sunlight mean?
- nounThe light that comes from the sun.
Sunlight in a sentence
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The office gets plenty of sunlight through the south-facing windows.
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Hang the washing outside so the sunlight can dry it quickly.
Where does sunlight come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is a homely native English compound, joining two of the oldest words in the language: 'sun', from Old English 'sunne', and 'light', from Old English 'leoht', both with deep Germanic roots shared across many sister languages. 'Sunne' traces back to a Proto-Germanic word for the sun that also gave German 'Sonne' and Dutch 'zon', while 'leoht' connects to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'to shine' or 'to be bright', the same source that lies behind Latin 'lux' and 'lumen'. The compound 'sunlight' itself is recorded from the medieval period and simply names the visible light of the sun. Because it is a transparent compound of two familiar words, the spelling holds no real surprises beyond joining the two halves into a single word. Its companion 'sunshine' was formed in exactly the same way.
How the word is built
- sun (the star Sun)
- light (illumination)
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