Word.ws English Dictionary

lighting upon

lighting upon is the present participle and gerund of light upon.

Meaning of light upon

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

Questions about lighting upon

What is lighting upon the present participle and gerund of?
Lighting upon is the present participle and gerund of light upon.

Words near lighting upon in the dictionary

  1. lighting up a room
  2. lighting up like a Christmas tree
  3. lighting up someone's ass
  4. lighting up the room
  5. lighting up the tote
  6. lighting upon
  7. lighting-up time
  8. lighting-up times
  9. lightings
  10. lightish
  11. lightkeeper

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lighting upon (page history and authors); 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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