Word.ws English Dictionary

blinkenlights

blinkenlights is the plural of blinkenlight.

Meaning of blinkenlight

Noun

blinkenlight (plural blinkenlights)

  1. A flashing light or beacon light.
    • The ASC straightened in his chair, casting a blinkenlight shadow over them. "I think we can table this until further investigation is done into Agent Mukami's cognition, however we want to approach that. Yes?"2023 October 8, HarryBlank, “Taking the Lead”, in SCP Foundation, archived from the original on 25 May 2024
  2. A status light on an electronic or electric device, such as a modem, router, network hub, etc.

Noun

blinkenlights pl (normally plural, singular blinkenlight)

  1. (plural, plural-normally, slang) The flashing lights on an electronic device such as a modem, router, or network hub (originally the front-panel lights on old computers).
    • The back of the NIRT truck was crowded with consoles and flashing panels of blinkenlights, battered laptops plastered with security inventory stickers...2007, Charles Stross, The Merchants' War
    • I am talking about — of course — LED blinkenlights, the usually-blue glowing pimples that pepper routers, speakers, computers and even USB hubs.2011 June 6, Charlie Sorrel, “LightDims: Tiny Sunglasses for Blinkenlights”, in WIRED, archived from the original on 08 Jun 2011

Forms of blinkenlights

alternative formblinkenlichten
alternative formblinklichter
singularblinkenlight

Origin of blinkenlights

Pseudo-Germanism from blink and lights; see the Wikipedia article for history.

Questions about blinkenlights

What does blinkenlights mean?
Blinkenlights means the flashing lights on an electronic device such as a modem, router, or network hub (originally the front-panel lights on old computers).
What is blinkenlights the plural of?
Blinkenlights is the plural of blinkenlight.
What part of speech is blinkenlights?
Blinkenlights is a noun.

Words near blinkenlights in the dictionary

  1. blinkards
  2. blinked
  3. blinked first
  4. Blinken
  5. blinkenlight
  6. blinkenlights
  7. Blinkens
  8. blinker
  9. blinker fluid
  10. blinkerdom
  11. blinkered

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: blinkenlights (page history and authors); blinkenlight (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-uk-blinkenlights.ogg.

Cite this entry: “blinkenlights.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blinkenlights. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.