Word.ws English Dictionary

burnt daylight

burnt daylight is the past participle 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 burnt daylight

What is burnt daylight the past participle of?
Burnt daylight is the past participle of burn daylight.

Words near burnt daylight in the dictionary

  1. burnt away
  2. burnt bread
  3. Burnt Bridge
  4. burnt coal
  5. burnt cream
  6. burnt daylight
  7. burnt down
  8. burnt ear
  9. burnt ears
  10. burnt ends
  11. Burnt Hills

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: burnt 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.

Last updated:

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