[f. LIGHT v.2 + -ING1. In OE. líhting.]
1. Illumination. † In quot. c. 1175 = Dawn.
c. 1000. Ælfric, Gen. i. 16. God ʓeworhte … þæt mare leoht to þæs dæʓes lihtinge.
c. 1175. Lamb. Hom., 45. Ic ham ȝeue reste … from non on saterdei a þa cume monedeis lihting.
1718. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett. to Mrs. Thistlethwayte, 16 Oct. Paris has the advantage of London, in the neat pavement of the streets, and the regular lighting of them at nights.
1851. Illustr. Catal. Gt. Exhib., 1176. Chemical products, obtained by purifying gas used for lighting.
1874. Micklethwaite, Mod. Par. Churches, 26. The lighting should be mainly from the clerestory.
1876. Black, Madcap Violet, xlvi. 390. The silver lighting of the restless … sea.
attrib. 1858. Simmonds, Dict. Trade, Lighting-rate, a public rate for maintaining the lamps or gas-lights in a parish.
1889. Daily News, 2 Dec., 5/4. A conductor of the fluid from the lighting wire.
† 2. concr. Lightning. Obs.
1297. R. Glouc. (Rolls), 7763. Tempestes þer come þondringe & liȝtinge ek.
a. 1300. Fragm. Pop. Sci. (Wright), 146. The liȝting That schut abrod into al the wordle.
a. 1400. Tokens Doomsday, 25 (E. E. T. S., 1878). Oure lord schal come & smyte adoun, as liȝttyng doþ to ground.
c. 1425. Seven Sag. (P.), 2191. Lyghtyn, thondyr, and rayne.
1618. Bolton, Florus, I. xvii. (1636), 51. As if volleyes of Lighting, and Thunder had beene discharged from the Clouds of Heaven upon the old earth-borne Gyants.
3. Kindling, ignition. Also with up (see LIGHT v.2 2 c).
1389. in Eng. Gilds (1870), 35. The sexteyn … ssal han, for lythynge of the lythe, viijd.
1499–1500. in Swayne, Sarum Churchw. Acc. (1896), 51. Paid … for lightyng of the Rode light.
1652. Needham, trans. Selden’s Mare Cl., 124. The lighting of one Candle by another.
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xviii. IV. 223. At the first lighting of the beacons.
1897. ‘Ouida,’ Massarenes, ix. Do you mind my lighting up, Pater?
4. The incidence of light upon the features, etc.; the disposition of light in a picture.
1861. Sat. Rev., 21 Dec., 648. In a statue by an Italian master, what he notices chiefly are the various effects which various lightings produce upon its features.
1869. Athenæum, 18 Dec., 826. As a study in colour and lighting the work is a model.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., III. 142. The colour and lighting of the object to be photographed.
5. = ANNEALING 3 (Knight, Dict. Mech., 1875).
