Word.ws English Dictionary

lit

/ˈlɪt/

lit is the simple past and past participle of light.

lit is the clipping of literature.

Adjective (1)

lit (comparative more lit, superlative most lit)

  1. Illuminated.
    • He walked down the lit corridor.
  2. (slang) Drunk, intoxicated; under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
    • True to my word last night, I got very lit.1932, Hart Crane, letter, 16 February
  3. (slang, usually) Sexually aroused, (especially) visibly so.
  4. (slang) Exciting, captivating; fun.
    • This party is gonna be lit.
    • DJ sets so lit the dance floor's dripping with sweat?2017 November, Justin Allec, Adrian Lysenko, Kirsti Salmi, “Sounds of the City: Part VI”, in The Walleye, page 8
  5. (slang) Excellent, fantastic; cool.
    • Those jeans are lit.
    • […] will keep your feet looking lit this summer thanks to the Trainer Exchange.2017 June 8, “Out with the old, in with the new”, in Dundrum Gazette, page 18

Meaning of light

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To start (a fire).
    • We lit the fire to get some heat.
    Synonyms:
    set
  2. (transitive) To set fire to; to set burning.
    • She lit her last match.
  3. (transitive) To illuminate; to provide light for when it is dark.
    • I used my torch to light the way home through the woods in the night.
  4. (intransitive) To become ignited; to take fire.
    • This soggy match will not light.
  5. To attend or conduct with a light; to show the way to by means of a light.
    • His bishops lead him forth, and light him on.1824, Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations: Richard I and the Abbot of Boxley
  6. (transitive, pinball) To make (a bonus) available to be collected by hitting a target, and thus light up the feature light corresponding to that bonus to indicate its availability.
    • Light the extra ball by amassing 500 million points in the wizard mode.

See all 69 meanings of light

Meaning of literature

Noun

literature (usually uncountable, plural literatures)

  1. (usually) The body of all written works.
  2. (usually) The collected creative writing of a nation, people, group, or culture.
    • He’s studying English literature at university.
  3. (usually, usually preceded by the) All the papers, treatises, etc. published in academic journals on a particular subject.
    • The obvious question to ask at this point is: ‘Why posit the existence of a set of Thematic Relations (THEME, AGENT, INSTRUMENT, etc.) distinct from constituent structure relations?ʼ The answer given in the relevant literature is that a variety of linguistic phenomena can be accounted for in a more...1988, Andrew Radford, chapter 7, in Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 373
  4. (usually) Written fiction of a high standard.
    • However, even “literary” science fiction rarely qualifies as literature, because it treats characters as sets of traits rather than as fully realized human beings with unique life stories.2008, Adam Cadre
  5. (obsolete, usually) Literacy; ability to read and write.
    • They all assumed to be mighty rakish and knowing, they were not very tidy in their private dresses, they were not at all orderly in their domestic arrangements, and the combined literature of the whole company would have produced but a poor letter on any subject.1854, Charles Dickens, Hard Times: A Novel

Verb (1)

lit (third-person singular simple present lits, present participle litting, simple past and past participle litted)

  1. (US, dialectal) To run or light (alight).
    • With that the kid lits off down the street, and, what do you know!1988 April 8, Grant Pick, “Johnny Washington's Life”, in Chicago Reader

Adjective (2)

lit (comparative litter or more lit, superlative littest or most lit)

  1. (obsolete) Little.

Noun (1)

lit (uncountable)

  1. (obsolete) Little.

Noun (2)

lit (uncountable)

  1. (UK, dialectal) Colour; blee; dye; stain.

Verb (2)

lit (third-person singular simple present lits, present participle litting, simple past and past participle litted)

  1. (transitive) To colour; dye.

Noun (3) capitalized: Lit

Lit (uncountable)

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of literature.

Proper noun capitalized: Lit

Lit

  1. A village in Östersund municipality, Jämtland County, Sweden.

Synonyms of lit

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of lit

Verb
third-person singular presentlits
present participlelitting
past participlelitted
pastlitted
Adjective
comparativemore lit
superlativemost lit
comparativelitter
superlativelittest

Origin of lit

Alteration of earlier light, from Middle English lighte, from Old English līhtte, first and third person singular preterite of līhtan (“to light”), by analogy with bit. More at light; compare fit (“fought”). This form was proscribed during the 18th and 19th centuries, with lighted being preferred, but is now the most common past form of light.

From Middle English lit, lut, from Old English lȳt (“little, few”), from Proto-Germanic *lūtilaz (“little, small”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewd- (“to cower, hunch over”). Cognate with Old Saxon lut (“little”), Middle High German lützen (“to make small or low, decrease”). More at little.

From Middle English lit, from Old Norse litr (“colour, dye, complexion, face, countenance”), from Proto-Germanic *wlitiz, *wlitaz (“sight, face”), from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“to see”). Cognate with Icelandic litur (“colour”), Old English wlite (“brightness, appearance, form, aspect, look, countenance, beauty, splendor, adornment”), Old English wlītan (“to gaze, look, observe”).

Words formed from lit

Phrases with lit

13 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with lit

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about lit

What does lit mean?
Lit means to run or light (alight).
What is lit the simple past and past participle of?
Lit is the simple past and past participle of light.
What part of speech is lit?
Lit can be a verb, an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce lit?
Lit is pronounced /ˈlɪt/.
What is the past tense of lit?
The past tense of lit is litted.

Words near lit in the dictionary

  1. Liszt
  2. Liszt fever
  3. Lisztian
  4. Lisztomania
  5. Liszts
  6. lit
  7. lit a fire under
  8. lit crit
  9. lit de justice
  10. lit fic
  11. lit flick

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lit (page history and authors); Lit (page history and authors); light (page history and authors); literature (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:

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

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