Bengal light
Bengal light noun: a bright blue flare prepared from niter, sulphur, and the black sulphide of antimony; formerly used in signalling, but now chiefly as fireworks.
Noun
Bengal light (plural Bengal lights)
- A bright blue flare prepared from niter, sulphur, and the black sulphide of antimony; formerly used in signalling, but now chiefly as fireworks.
- I saw no more of it than this sort of luminous panel, sharply defined against a vague and shadowy background, like the panels which the glow of a Bengal light or a searchlight beam will cut out and illuminate in a building the other parts of which remain plunged in darkness1922, Marcel Proust, “Overture”, in C[harles] K[enneth] Scott Moncrieff, transl., Remembrance of Things Past: Part One: Swann’s Way, volume I, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 40
- […] until at last, as if given up on our common sense, they took their leave with a salute of Bengal lights from which irony may not have been entirely absent.2006, Thomas Pynchon, “Iceland Spar”, in Against the Day, New York, N.Y.: Penguin Press, →ISBN, page 144
- Synonyms:
- Bengal fire, bengola, blue light
Bengal light meaning in Bengali and Tagalog
Bengal light in Bengali
- bright blue flare
- বাংলা বাতি baṅla bati
Bengal light in Tagalog
- bright blue flare
- lus-benggala
Examples of Bengal light in a sentence
- The last streetcar was disappearing in the mirrorlike murk of the street and, along the wire above it, a spark of Bengal light, crackling and quivering, sped into the distance like a blue star.2012 [1924], “Details of a Sunset”, in Dmitri Nabokov, transl., Collected Stories, Penguin, translation of original by Vladimir Nabokov...
- “Everything suggests the fire started from the burning candles or ‘Bengal lights’ that had been attached to champagne bottles,” the prosecutor Béatrice Pilloud said on Friday.2026 January 2, Angela Giuffrida, Jon Henley, “Sparklers held near ceiling started Swiss ski resort fire, investigators believe”, in The...
Synonyms of Bengal light
Forms of Bengal light
| plural | Bengal lights |
|---|---|
| alternative form | Bengola light |
Questions about Bengal light
- What does Bengal light mean?
- Bengal light means a bright blue flare prepared from niter, sulphur, and the black sulphide of antimony; formerly used in signalling, but now chiefly as fireworks.
- What is Bengal light in Bengali?
- Bengal light in Bengali is বাংলা বাতি (baṅla bati). See Bengal light meaning in Bengali.
- How do you use Bengal light in a sentence?
- The last streetcar was disappearing in the mirrorlike murk of the street and, along the wire above it, a spark of Bengal light, crackling and quivering, sped into the distance like a blue star.
- What part of speech is Bengal light?
- Bengal light is a noun.
- What is the plural of Bengal light?
- The plural of Bengal light is Bengal lights.
Words near Bengal light in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Bengal light (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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