Word.ws English Dictionary

chain-light

chain-light verb: to light a new cigarette with the burning stub of one's previous cigarette.

Verb

chain-light (third-person singular simple present chain-lights, present participle chain-lighting, simple past and past participle chain-lit or chain-lighted)

  1. To light a new cigarette with the burning stub of one's previous cigarette.
    • He chain-lit a fresh cigarette and flicked the old butt, still smouldering, into the steel ash-can beside his drawing table.1957, Sydney J. Bounds, The Robot Brains, London: Digit Books, page 32

Forms of chain-light

third-person singular presentchain-lights
present participlechain-lighting
past participlechain-lit
pastchain-lit
past participlechain-lighted
pastchain-lighted

Questions about chain-light

What does chain-light mean?
Chain-light means to light a new cigarette with the burning stub of one's previous cigarette.
What part of speech is chain-light?
Chain-light is a verb.
What is the past tense of chain-light?
The past tense of chain-light is chain-lit.

Words near chain-light in the dictionary

  1. chain-cables
  2. chain-driven
  3. chain-ganger
  4. chain-gangers
  5. chain-ladder method
  6. chain-light
  7. chain-lighted
  8. chain-lighting
  9. chain-lights
  10. chain-link
  11. chain-links

Source and license

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