"strike a light" meaning in English

See strike a light in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Interjection

Head templates: {{en-interj}} strike a light
  1. (UK, informal, dated) Expressing surprise. Tags: UK, dated, informal
    Sense id: en-strike_a_light-en-intj-kAXtntd6 Categories (other): British English, English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 65 35

Verb

Forms: strikes a light [present, singular, third-person], striking a light [participle, present], struck a light [past], struck a light [participle, past], stricken a light [participle, past, rare]
Head templates: {{en-verb|strike<,,struck> a light|past_ptc2=stricken a light|past_ptc2_qual=rare}} strike a light (third-person singular simple present strikes a light, present participle striking a light, simple past struck a light, past participle struck a light or (rare) stricken a light)
  1. (idiomatic) To create a flame (using a match, flint, etc.). Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-strike_a_light-en-verb-mjz4juDT

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for strike a light meaning in English (3.0kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "strikes a light",
      "tags": [
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    {
      "form": "striking a light",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
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    },
    {
      "form": "struck a light",
      "tags": [
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      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "struck a light",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "stricken a light",
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      "expansion": "strike a light (third-person singular simple present strikes a light, present participle striking a light, simple past struck a light, past participle struck a light or (rare) stricken a light)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "1681, Nahum Tate, The History of King Lear, London: E. Flesher, Act 3, p. 36,\nLook I have Flint and Steel, the Implements\nOf wandring Lunaticks, I’ll strike a Light,\nAnd make a Fire beneath this Shed, to dry\nThy Storm-drencht Garments, e’re thou Lie to rest thee;"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1760, Laurence Sterne, “Meditation on Tobacco”, in Yorick’s Meditations, London: R. Stevens, page 22",
          "text": "I must quit my subject, though much against my will, for hark, the bell sounds, my candle is burnt out, and I have not so much as a flint to strike a light, so I must go to bed, and there dream or meditate till to-morrow.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, 3rd edition, 1821, Volume 2, Chapter 8, pp. 129-130,\nWhile the one struck a light with a flint and steel, the other disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have already mentioned, and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red glow."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Robert Harris, Enigma, New York: Random House, Chapter 1, section 3, p. 19",
          "text": "He took a box of matches from the mantelpiece, struck a light and held it to the gas fire.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To create a flame (using a match, flint, etc.)."
      ],
      "id": "en-strike_a_light-en-verb-mjz4juDT",
      "links": [
        [
          "create",
          "create"
        ],
        [
          "flame",
          "flame"
        ],
        [
          "match",
          "match#Etymology_2"
        ],
        [
          "flint",
          "flint"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To create a flame (using a match, flint, etc.)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "strike a light"
}

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        {
          "text": "Cor, strike a light! Did you see him jump into the river?",
          "type": "example"
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      ],
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        "Expressing surprise."
      ],
      "id": "en-strike_a_light-en-intj-kAXtntd6",
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        "(UK, informal, dated) Expressing surprise."
      ],
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        "dated",
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    }
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  "word": "strike a light"
}
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    {
      "form": "struck a light",
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    {
      "form": "struck a light",
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          "text": "1681, Nahum Tate, The History of King Lear, London: E. Flesher, Act 3, p. 36,\nLook I have Flint and Steel, the Implements\nOf wandring Lunaticks, I’ll strike a Light,\nAnd make a Fire beneath this Shed, to dry\nThy Storm-drencht Garments, e’re thou Lie to rest thee;"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1760, Laurence Sterne, “Meditation on Tobacco”, in Yorick’s Meditations, London: R. Stevens, page 22",
          "text": "I must quit my subject, though much against my will, for hark, the bell sounds, my candle is burnt out, and I have not so much as a flint to strike a light, so I must go to bed, and there dream or meditate till to-morrow.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "text": "1820, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, Edinburgh: Archibald Constable, 3rd edition, 1821, Volume 2, Chapter 8, pp. 129-130,\nWhile the one struck a light with a flint and steel, the other disposed the charcoal in the large rusty grate which we have already mentioned, and exercised the bellows until the fuel came to a red glow."
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, Robert Harris, Enigma, New York: Random House, Chapter 1, section 3, p. 19",
          "text": "He took a box of matches from the mantelpiece, struck a light and held it to the gas fire.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
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        "To create a flame (using a match, flint, etc.)."
      ],
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          "flame"
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        "(idiomatic) To create a flame (using a match, flint, etc.)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "strike a light"
}

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          "text": "Cor, strike a light! Did you see him jump into the river?",
          "type": "example"
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        "Expressing surprise."
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        "(UK, informal, dated) Expressing surprise."
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  "word": "strike a light"
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.