lightning

/ˈlaɪt.nɪŋ//ˈlaɪt.nɪŋ/

lightning noun: a flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth. Also the obsolete form of lightening.

Image: EL Caballero, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

lightning (usually uncountable, plural lightnings)

(usually) A flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth.
- Although we did not see the lightning, we did hear the thunder.
- Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 38:35
(usually) A discharge of this kind.
- The lightning was hot enough to melt the sand.
- That tree was hit by lightning.
(figuratively, usually) Anything that moves very fast.
- Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking beast and dodged his opponent's thrust with ease. Then he raced to the rear of the tremendous thing and seized it by the tail.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp., →OCLC; republished as chapter V, in Hugo Gernsback, editor...
(archaic, slang, usually) Gin.
- I took some gin but it did little to calm my mood. […] 'Come now, Bess,' she entreated, and poured another glass of lightning. 'Tell your old mother everything.' I took a gulp of the spirit, then babbled all, showing her the loot now in my possession.2017, Jake Arnott, The Fatal Tree

Adjective

lightning (not comparable)

Extremely fast or sudden; moving (as if) at the speed of lightning.
- The insurgents then began their lightning advance along the Euphrates in the Sunni heartland toward Baghdad.2018, Nader Uskowi, Temperature Rising, page 69

Verb

lightning (third-person singular simple present lightnings, present participle lightninging, simple past and past participle lightninged)

(childish, impersonal, intransitive, nonstandard) To produce lightning.
- Or if it thundered and lightninged, Aunt Frances always dropped everything she might be doing and held Elizabeth Ann tightly in her arms until it was all over.1916, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Understood Betsy
- The next day, though it is not only raining but thundering and lightninging as well, antiquing is seen by three-fourths of those present as a lesser evil than free play.1968, Dan Greenburg, Chewsday: a sex novel

Also used as

lightning is also the obsolete form of lightening.

lightning meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali

lightning in Hindi

flash of light: तड़ित taṛit, विद्युत vidyut, बिजली bijlī, वज्रपात vajrapāt, दामिनी dāminī
discharge: तड़ित taṛit, विद्युत vidyut, बिजली bijlī, वज्रपात vajrapāt, दामिनी dāminī

lightning in Tamil

flash of light: மின்னல் miṉṉal

lightning in Urdu

flash of light: بِجْلی bijlī, بَرْق barq, صاعِقَہ sā'iqa

lightning in Bengali

flash of light: বাজ baj, বজ্র bojro

More languagesFewer languages

lightning in Telugu: మెరుపు merupu, విడుదల viḍudala
lightning in Malayalam: മിന്നല് minnal, മിന്നൽ minnal, ഇടിവെട്ട് iṭiveṭṭŭ
lightning in Kannada: ಮಿಂಚು miñcu
lightning in Punjabi: ਬਿਜਲੀ bijlī, ਰੋਹਣੀ rohṇī
lightning in Gujarati: વીજ vīj, વિદ્યુત vidyut, તડિત taḍit
lightning in Odia: ବିଜୁଳି bijuḷi
lightning in Sanskrit: वज्र vajra, शम्पा śampā, विद्युत् vidyut, अशनि aśani
lightning in Sinhala: අකුණු akuṇu
lightning in Nepali: चट्याङ caṭyāṅ
lightning in Pashto: بجلي bǝjlí, برېښنا brex̌nã, برېښ brex̌
lightning in Tagalog: kidlat
lightning in Arabic: بَرْق barq, بَرَقَ baraqa, أَبْرَقَ ʔabraqa
lightning in Malay: kilat
lightning in Indonesian: kilat, geledek, petir, halilintar
lightning in Thai: ฟ้าแลบ fáa-lɛ̂ɛp, สายฟ้า sǎai-fáa, วิชชุ wít-chú, วิเชียร wí-chiian
lightning in Vietnamese: sét, chớp
lightning in Myanmar: လျှပ် hlyap
Dzongkha: གློག་ glog

Examples of lightning in a sentence

It was the thought of hot July and August days, when the clouds piled up like woolly mountains, and lightnings streaked the sky.1901, E. L. Morris, The Child's Eden, page 16:
Manny drove a few miles per hour under the speed limit, entranced by the awesome display of lightning streaking out of the clouds toward earth.2008, Kathy Clark, Stand By Your Man, page 280:
"Ruu": The adults in the village all said that children like me could calm the lightning and turn the storms into timely rain.2021 October 13, Genshin Impact, v2.2, miHoYo, iOS, Android, Windows, PS4, level/area: The Sun-Wheel and Mt. Kanna:
The rain at length ceased; and the lightnings, as they played along the black parapet of clouds, that lay piled in the east, shone with less dazzling fierceness, […]1881, Daniel Pierce Thompson, The Green Mountain Boys, page 281:

All 40 example sentences with lightning

Forms of lightning

Noun
plural	lightnings
Verb
third-person singular present	lightnings
present participle	lightninging
past participle	lightninged
past	lightninged

Plural of lightning: lightnings

Origin of lightning

From light(e)n + -ing. Doublet of lightening.

Words formed from lightning

Words that rhyme with lightning

Questions about lightning

What does lightning mean?: Lightning means a flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth.
What is lightning in Hindi?: Lightning in Hindi is तड़ित (taṛit), विद्युत (vidyut), बिजली (bijlī). See Lightning meaning in Hindi.
How do you use lightning in a sentence?: It was the thought of hot July and August days, when the clouds piled up like woolly mountains, and lightnings streaked the sky.
What part of speech is lightning?: Lightning can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
How do you pronounce lightning?: Lightning is pronounced /ˈlaɪt.nɪŋ/.
What is the plural of lightning?: The plural of lightning is lightnings.

Words near lightning in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: lightning (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-lightning.ogg.

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