English

Noun

nightlight ‎(plural nightlights)

1. a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight
   • 1925, D. H. Lawrence, Quetzalcoatl, edited by Louis L. Martz, New York: New Directions, 1998, Chapter XVIII, p. 310,

     She had brought in with her the night-light that had been burning outside her door. She blew it out.

   • 1974, Anne Sexton, "The Fury of Overshoes" in The Complete Poems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981, p. 372,

     They made you give up / your nightlight / and your teddy / and your thumb.

   • 1988, Joseph Brodsky, "Gorbunov and Gorchakov" Canto 13 in In Urania, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 165,

     Your light cannot drive off the dark from me— / not any more than night-lights by the bed / drive off my dreams.

   He put a small nightlight in the bathroom to find his way around in the dark.

2. light that shines at night such as moonlight, starlight, etc.
   • 1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, Part Six, Chapter III,

     The floor-cloth deadened his footsteps as he moved in that direction through the obscurity, which was broken only by the faintest reflected night-light from without.

   • 1924, Herman Melville, Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co., Chapter 12,

     […] the man held up two small objects faintly twinkling in the nightlight;

   • 1980, William Trevor, Other People's Worlds, Penguin, 1982, Chapter 4, p. 79,

     Their made-up faces were garish in the night-light and as they walked they stared fixedly ahead, afraid to make a sideways glance in case it should be called soliciting.

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