lightning
/ˈlʌɪtnɪŋ
/noun [mass noun]
1The occurrence of a natural electrical discharge of very short duration and high voltage between a cloud and the ground or within a cloud, accompanied by a bright flash and typically also thunder: a tremendous flash of lightning...
- They shoot up from the tops of thunderstorms about the same moment lightning discharges within the storm cloud.
- They saw the flashes of lightning within the dark cloud looming ahead of them.
- Low, dark clouds boiled overhead and lightning flashed and thunder rolled down the mountainside.
1.1 [count noun] literary A flash or discharge of lightning: the sky was a mass of black cloud out of which lightnings flashed...
- And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not seen since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great.
- Accelerators fire big ball lightnings, and these ball lightnings will bounce off the walls and fly about the room chaotically.
- And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
adjective [attributive]
Very quick: a lightning cure for his hangover galloping across the country at lightning speed...
- Like the folk healers of old, Callahan thinks it is his magic that is effecting cures at lightning speed.
- Thomas reached up with lightning speed and was suddenly holding a bat.
- Roman is lightning quick and improving every day in practice, and Bean showed playmaking ability in the preseason.
Usage
The form lightning is historically a contracted form of lightening (it was at one time spelled light’ning) but the two forms are now two distinct words. In the sense thunder and lightning and lightning speed, the spelling is always lightning, while in the sense ‘make or become lighter’ the spelling is always lightening.
Phrases
lightning never strikes twice in the same place
like (greased) lightning
Origin
Middle English: special use of lightening (verbal noun from lighten2).