Word.ws English Dictionary

rising of the lights

rising of the lights noun: an illness or obstructive condition of the larynx, trachea, or lungs, found as a cause of death on bills of mortality in the 16- and 1700s; possibly croup.

Noun

rising of the lights (uncountable)

  1. (historical, obsolete) An illness or obstructive condition of the larynx, trachea, or lungs, found as a cause of death on bills of mortality in the 16- and 1700s; possibly croup.
    • John Graunt reflected on the increases in death from particular diseases between 1634 and 1660: […] That the Rising of the lights (supposed in most Cases to be the Fits of the Mother) have also encreased in thirty years, […]c. 1660-1674, John Graunt, quoted in 2008, David Brandon, Alan Brooke, London: City of the Dead, The History Press
    • The December 1759 edition, for example, offers a bleak perspective on an underside of the Enlightenment, Of the 19514 deaths on the London list, […] the causes of death included these: bloody flux, twisting of the guts, evil, French pox, rising of the lights, ...2006, Nigel Starck, Life After Death: The Art of the Obituary, Melbourne Univ. Publishing, →ISBN, page 19

Origin of rising of the lights

From lights (“lungs”).

Questions about rising of the lights

What does rising of the lights mean?
Rising of the lights means an illness or obstructive condition of the larynx, trachea, or lungs, found as a cause of death on bills of mortality in the 16- and 1700s; possibly croup.
What part of speech is rising of the lights?
Rising of the lights is a noun.

Words near rising of the lights in the dictionary

  1. rising larks
  2. rising line
  3. rising lines
  4. rising main
  5. rising mains
  6. rising of the lights
  7. rising of the moon
  8. rising seat
  9. rising seats
  10. rising star
  11. Rising Star Cave

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rising of the lights (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:

Cite this entry: “rising of the lights.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/rising_of_the_lights. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.