"rushlight" meaning in English

See rushlight in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: rushlights [plural]
Etymology: From rush + light. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|rush|light}} rush + light Head templates: {{en-noun}} rushlight (plural rushlights)
  1. (historical) A type of inexpensive candle formed by soaking the dried pith of the rush plant in fat or grease, which emits light for a relatively short period of time. Wikipedia link: rushlight Tags: historical Categories (topical): Light sources Translations (type of inexpensive candle): geataire [masculine] (Irish), cannwyll frwyn [feminine] (Welsh)

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "rush",
        "3": "light"
      },
      "expansion": "rush + light",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From rush + light.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "rushlights",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "rushlight (plural rushlights)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Irish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Welsh translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Light sources",
          "orig": "en:Light sources",
          "parents": [
            "Light",
            "Energy",
            "Nature",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XI, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 198–199:",
          "text": "The rushlight was her friend, and aided her to pass the long, long hours before midnight, for it was enclosed within its accustomed tin cage; […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Crawley of Queen’s Crawley”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 61:",
          "text": "After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick, and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them in order.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations:",
          "text": "As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in, before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those virtuous days.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1901, Evelyn Everett-Green, In the Wars of the Roses:",
          "text": "The nights were almost at their longest now, and the cold was very great; but the watchers piled fresh logs upon the fire, and talked quietly to each other as they sat in the dancing glow--for the rushlight had long since gone out.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A type of inexpensive candle formed by soaking the dried pith of the rush plant in fat or grease, which emits light for a relatively short period of time."
      ],
      "id": "en-rushlight-en-noun-N1cLakBw",
      "links": [
        [
          "inexpensive",
          "inexpensive"
        ],
        [
          "candle",
          "candle"
        ],
        [
          "soaking",
          "soak#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "dried",
          "dried"
        ],
        [
          "pith",
          "pith"
        ],
        [
          "rush",
          "rush#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "plant",
          "plant#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "fat",
          "fat#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "grease",
          "grease#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "emit",
          "emit"
        ],
        [
          "light",
          "light#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "time",
          "time#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) A type of inexpensive candle formed by soaking the dried pith of the rush plant in fat or grease, which emits light for a relatively short period of time."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "ga",
          "lang": "Irish",
          "sense": "type of inexpensive candle",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "geataire"
        },
        {
          "code": "cy",
          "lang": "Welsh",
          "sense": "type of inexpensive candle",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "cannwyll frwyn"
        }
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "rushlight"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "rushlight"
}
{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "rush",
        "3": "light"
      },
      "expansion": "rush + light",
      "name": "compound"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From rush + light.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "rushlights",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "rushlight (plural rushlights)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English compound terms",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with historical senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Irish translations",
        "Terms with Welsh translations",
        "en:Light sources"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XI, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, pages 198–199:",
          "text": "The rushlight was her friend, and aided her to pass the long, long hours before midnight, for it was enclosed within its accustomed tin cage; […]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Crawley of Queen’s Crawley”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC, page 61:",
          "text": "After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe; and when it became quite dark, he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick, and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers, began reading them, and putting them in order.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1861, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations:",
          "text": "As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in, before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those virtuous days.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1901, Evelyn Everett-Green, In the Wars of the Roses:",
          "text": "The nights were almost at their longest now, and the cold was very great; but the watchers piled fresh logs upon the fire, and talked quietly to each other as they sat in the dancing glow--for the rushlight had long since gone out.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A type of inexpensive candle formed by soaking the dried pith of the rush plant in fat or grease, which emits light for a relatively short period of time."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "inexpensive",
          "inexpensive"
        ],
        [
          "candle",
          "candle"
        ],
        [
          "soaking",
          "soak#Verb"
        ],
        [
          "dried",
          "dried"
        ],
        [
          "pith",
          "pith"
        ],
        [
          "rush",
          "rush#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "plant",
          "plant#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "fat",
          "fat#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "grease",
          "grease#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "emit",
          "emit"
        ],
        [
          "light",
          "light#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "time",
          "time#Noun"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(historical) A type of inexpensive candle formed by soaking the dried pith of the rush plant in fat or grease, which emits light for a relatively short period of time."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "historical"
      ],
      "wikipedia": [
        "rushlight"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "ga",
      "lang": "Irish",
      "sense": "type of inexpensive candle",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "geataire"
    },
    {
      "code": "cy",
      "lang": "Welsh",
      "sense": "type of inexpensive candle",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "cannwyll frwyn"
    }
  ],
  "word": "rushlight"
}

Download raw JSONL data for rushlight meaning in English (3.1kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (4ba5975 and 4ed51a5). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.