Also 4–5 liȝtnynge, 4, 6 lyghtnyng, 5–6 lightnyng, lyght(e)nynge, lyt(e)nynge, (5 litynnynge, 6 lyghteling), 6–8 lightening, 7–8 light’ning. [Special use of LIGHTENING vbl. sb.2; now differentiated in spelling.]
1. The visible discharge of electricity between one group of clouds and another, or between the clouds and the ground. Also in particularized sense (now rare), A flash of lightning. Like lightning, with the swiftness of lightning. Also in phr. † in less than, † to last no longer than a lightning.
Forked lightning, chain or chained lightning: designations applied (usu. indiscriminately) to lightning that assumes the form of a zigzag or divided line. Sheet lightning: that in which a wide surface is equally illuminated at once. Summer or heat lightning: sheet lightning without thunder, the result of a storm at a great distance.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XIX. 197. Thanne come … One spiritus paraclitus to Pieres and to his felawes In lyknesse of a liȝtnynge, he lyȝte on hem alle.
1388. Wyclif, Ps. lxxvi. 19. Thi liȝtnyngis schyneden to the world.
c. 1425. Capgrave, Chron. (Rolls), 314. The moost horribil thunderes and litynnyngis that evyr ony man herd.
a. 1470. Gregory’s Chron., in Hist. Coll. Citizen Lond. (Camden), 185. The same yere was Syn Poulys stypylle fyryd … whythe the lyghtenynge.
1555. Eden, Decades, 98. He shall rewarde yowe whiche sendeth thunderynge and lyghtelyng to the destruction of myscheuous men.
1591. Florio, 2nd Fruites, 49. It shall be readie in les than a lightning.
1651. trans. De-las-Coveras’ Don Fenise, 257. A beame of her eyes … which lasted no longer than a lightning.
1718. Pope, Iliad, XV. 725. He … drives him, like a Light’ning, on the Foe.
1722. De Foe, Plague (1754), 261. This Notion ran like Lightening thro’ the City.
1841. Marryat, Poacher, xxvii. Our hero … ran like lightning to the gap.
1859. All Year Round, No. 17. 400. The lightning … was chiefly ‘sheet lightning,’ though now and then ‘chained’ or ‘forked’ was visible.
1880. Nature, XXI. 407. A few lightnings and rather more auroras were seen.
transf. and fig. 1686. trans. Chardin’s Coron. Solyman, 149. The Lightning of Royal disfavour afterwards fell on Mirza Sadee.
1771. Mackenzie, Man Feel., xxviii. (1803), 48. His eyes lost the lightning of their fury.
1821. Shelley, Death Napoleon, iii. The lightning of scorn laughed forth As she sung [etc.].
1859. Tennyson, Guinevere, 516. She … Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes.
2. slang. Gin.
1781. G. Parker, Life’s Painter, 140. Noggin of lightning, a quartern of gin.
1851. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, I. 160. The stimulant of a ‘flash of lightning.’
3. attrib. and Comb.: a. simple attributive, as lightning-flame, -flash, -glimpse; b. instrumental, as lightning-blackened, -blasted, -struck adjs.; c. similative and parasynthetic, as lightning-footed, -swift, -winged adjs.; lightning-like adj. and adv.
1897. Clark Russell, Noble Haul, 80. Abaft she was naked, withered, and *lightning-blackened.
1821. Shelley, Prometh. Unb., II. i. 135. Yon *lightning-blasted almond-tree.
1561. T. Norton, Calvin’s Inst., I. 8. To set the aire on fier with *lightning flames.
1588. Shaks., Tit. A., II. i. 3. Secure of Thunders cracke or *lightning flash.
1866. J. H. Newman, Gerontius, § 4. Then sight … As by a lightning-flash, will come to thee.
1870. Bryant, Iliad, I. VIII. 247. Mars, the *lightning-footed.
1667. Milton, P. L., VI. 642. Light as the *Lightning glimps they ran.
a. 1822. Shelley, Prose Wks. (1880), III. 323. *Lightning-like the vigorous maiden strides.
1841. Keble, Serm., xii. (1848), 311. The clear, the indisputable, the lightning-like evidence.
c. 1820. S. Rogers, Italy (1839), 157. An oak … Now *lightning-struck.
1857. C. Brontë, Professor, II. xix. 48. So *lightning-swift is thought.
1646. Crashaw, Sospetto d’Herode, xxx. The nimblest of the *lightning-winged loves.
d. passing into an adj.: Moving or flashing by with the rapidity of lightning.
1640. Bp. Reynolds, Passions, iv. To have a vanishing and lightning Fancie that knoweth not how to stay and fasten upon any particular.
1847. Disraeli, Tancred, IV. xi. He gazed with admiration on her lightning glance.
e. Special combs.: lightning-arrester, a device to protect telegraphic apparatus, etc., from lightning; lightning-bone, ? = FULGURITE 1; lightning-bug = FIRE-FLY 1; lightning-catarrh (see quot.); lightning-conductor, a metallic rod or wire fixed to the summit (or other exposed point) of a building, or the mast of a ship, to convey lightning harmlessly into the earth or sea; lightning-discharger = lightning-arrester; lightning express U.S., a designation given to certain very rapid trains; lightning-pains pl., sharp, shooting pains of momentary duration, felt by patients suffering from locomotor ataxy (Syd. Soc. Lex., 1888); lightning-paper, a kind of firework giving off flashes of colored light; lightning-print, an appearance sometimes found on the skin of men and animals and on clothing struck by lightning, popularly supposed to be photographs of surrounding objects; lightning-proof a., protected from lightning; lightning-rod = lightning-conductor; lightning-stone, -tube = FULGURITE 1.
1870. F. L. Pope, Electr. Tel., iv. (1872), 44. *Lightning-arresters must always be kept free from dampness and dirt.
1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., viii. 223. The name of *‘lightning-bones,’ or ‘thunder-bones,’ given to fossil bones.
1806. Moore, Song, iv. Poems 166. Gleam then like the *lightning-bug.
1850. Lyell, 2nd Visit U.S., II. 206. The elegant fire-fly is called a lightning-bug.
1883. B. W. Richardson, Field of Disease, 52. A suddenly developed and intensely severe cold or catarrh, hence sometimes called *‘lightning catarrh.’
1832. 2nd Rep. Brit. Assoc. (1833), 564. This ship had not a *lightning conductor up at the time.
1875. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Lightning-discharger.
1860. O. W. Holmes, Prof. Breakf.-t., vi. The *lightning-express-train whishes by.
1896. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., I. 346. In organic nervous diseases they [i.e., baths] are not to be recommended, unless it be to relieve the *lightning pains of tabes.
1873. E. Spon, Workshop Rec., 137. *Lightning Paper.
1876. Chamb. Jrnl., 15 Jan., 36/1. Signor Orioli brought before a scientific congress at Naples four narratives relating to *lightning-prints.
1855. Hyde Clarke, Dict., *Lightning-proof.
1790. in Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. (1793), III. 323. After a *lightening rod has been erected.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Worship, Wks. (Bohn), II. 407. The lightning-rod that disarms the cloud of its threat.
1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., viii. 208. The *lightning-stones are metals, stones, pebbles, which the fire of the thunder has metamorphosed.
1831. Literary Gaz., 15 Jan., 44/2. *Lightning Tubes—In the neighbourhood of the old castle of Remstein … there have been found this summer very firm and long vitreous tubes.
