See also LIGHTNING. [f. LIGHTEN v.2 + -ING1.] The shedding or shining of light; suffusion with light, lighting up; fig. enlightenment, illumination.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter xxvi. 1. Lord my lyȝtnynge: and my heel.
c. 1420. Prymer (1895), 14. God, þat tauȝtest þe hertes of þi trewe seruauntis bi liȝtnyng of þe holi goost.
c. 1430. Hymns Virg., 45. Bi þe liȝtnynge of a sterre To ihesu alle þre presentis þei brouȝte.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 74. Grace is an illumynacyon or lyghtnynge of the soule.
1667. Milton, P. L., V. 734. The Son with calm aspect and cleer Light’ning Divine.
1814. Scott, Fam. Lett. (1894), I. x. 318. A lightening in the domestic horizon.
1864. Swinburne, Atalanta, 1448. This lightening of clear weather.
1873. Miss Broughton, Nancy, III. 228. A kindling of the eye, and godly lightening of all her gentle face.
b. A lightening before death: that exhilaration or revival of the spirits that is supposed to occur in some instances just before death.
Cf. ‘a glimmering before death’ (Fletcher, Sp. Curate, IV. v.).
1592. Shaks., Rom. & Jul., V. iii. 90. How oft when men are at the point of death, Haue they beene merrie? Which their Keepers call A lightning before death.
c. 1611. Chapman, Iliad, XV. 213. This lightning flew before his death; which Pallas was to giue.
1641. Brome, Joviall Crew, V. Wks. 1873, III. 441. If it be a lightning before death, the best is, I am his heir.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, III. viii. 125. Not that I Lightning or fell Thunder feare, (Unless that Lightning before death appear).
1712. Addison, Spect., No. 517, ¶ 2. We were once in great Hopes of his Recovery … but this only proved a Light’ning before Death.
1840. Hood, Up the Rhine, 7. The old saying about a lightening before death.
c. attrib.: lightening-column, ? nonce-wd., a beacon-pillar (fig.).
1767. S. Paterson, Another Trav., I. 413. The first emporium of commerce—the lightening-column of navigation to all the world.
