Word.ws English Dictionary

light upon

light upon verb: to find or think of something unexpectedly; to come upon something by accident.

Verb

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

  1. To find or think of something unexpectedly; to come upon something by accident.
    • [...] Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly with...1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 16, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 75

Forms of light upon

third-person singular presentlights upon
present participlelighting upon
past participlelit upon
pastlit upon
past participlelighted upon
pastlighted upon

Questions about light upon

What does light upon mean?
Light upon means to find or think of something unexpectedly; to come upon something by accident.
What part of speech is light upon?
Light upon is a verb.
What is the past tense of light upon?
The past tense of light upon is lit upon.

Words near light upon in the dictionary

  1. light up a room
  2. light up like a Christmas tree
  3. light up someone's ass
  4. light up the room
  5. light up the tote
  6. light upon
  7. light vehicle
  8. light vehicles
  9. light verb
  10. light verbs
  11. light water

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: light upon (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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