Word.ws English Dictionary

burned daylight

burned daylight is the simple past of burn daylight.

Meaning of burn daylight

Verb

burn daylight (third-person singular simple present burns daylight, present participle burning daylight, simple past and past participle burned daylight or burnt daylight)

  1. (intransitive) To use artificial light during the daytime when one could simply use the sunlight.
    • O, Madam, no candles yet, I beseech you ; don't let us burn daylight.1819, Sir Walter Scott, Ivanhoe, page 364
  2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To waste time.
    • Mercutio. Come, we burn daylight, ho! Romeo. Nay, that's not so. Mercutio. I mean, sir, in delay. We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day.1595, William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet

Questions about burned daylight

What is burned daylight the simple past of?
Burned daylight is the simple past of burn daylight.

Words near burned daylight in the dictionary

  1. burned
  2. burned a hole in someone's pocket
  3. burned away
  4. burned bread
  5. burned coal
  6. burned daylight
  7. burned down
  8. burned in
  9. burned off
  10. burned one down
  11. burned one's boats

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burned daylight (page history and authors); burn daylight (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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