Word.ws English Dictionary

lightening someone's purse

lightening someone's purse is the present participle and gerund of lighten someone's purse.

Meaning of lighten someone's purse

Verb

lighten someone's purse (third-person singular simple present lightens someone's purse, present participle lightening someone's purse, simple past and past participle lightened someone's purse)

  1. (idiomatic) to take money from someone.
    • For when Robin Hood caught a baron or a squire, or a fat abbot or bishop, he brought them to the greenwood tree and feasted them before he lightened their purses.1883, Howard Pyle, chapter V, in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood […], New York, N.Y.: […] Charles Scribner’s Sons […], →OCLC

Questions about lightening someone's purse

What is lightening someone's purse the present participle and gerund of?
Lightening someone's purse is the present participle and gerund of lighten someone's purse.

Words near lightening someone's purse in the dictionary

  1. lightener
  2. lighteners
  3. lightenest
  4. lighteneth
  5. lightening
  6. lightening someone's purse
  7. lightening up
  8. lightenings
  9. lightens
  10. lightens someone's purse
  11. lightens up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lightening someone's purse (page history and authors); lighten someone's purse (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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