Word.ws English Dictionary

side flash

side flash noun: a disruptive electrical discharge between a conductor traversed by an oscillatory current of high frequency (such as lightning) and neighbouring masses of metal, or between different parts of the same conductor.

Noun

side flash (plural side flashes)

  1. A disruptive electrical discharge between a conductor traversed by an oscillatory current of high frequency (such as lightning) and neighbouring masses of metal, or between different parts of the same conductor.
    • There's the side flash. That's when an animal or person is standing close to the tree, the tree is hit by lightning, and then the lightning jumps from tree to person or animal. The side flash usually kills one or a small number of animals, not large ones like with ground currents.2016 August 29, Angela Chen, quoting John Jensenius, “How exactly did lightning kill 323 reindeer in Norway?”, in The Verge, archived from the original on 29 May 2023

Verb

side flash (third-person singular simple present side flashes, present participle side flashing, simple past and past participle side flashed)

  1. (intransitive) Of electricity: to create a side flash.
    • The charge traveled down the aluminum mast, and, not finding a path to ground, it side-flashed, blowing out the boat's hull.2010, Brunonia Barry, The Map of True Places, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow, →ISBN, page 243

Forms of side flash

Noun
pluralside flashes
alternative formside-flash
alternative formsideflash
Verb
third-person singular presentside flashes
present participleside flashing
past participleside flashed
pastside flashed

Questions about side flash

What does side flash mean?
Side flash means a disruptive electrical discharge between a conductor traversed by an oscillatory current of high frequency (such as lightning) and neighbouring masses of metal, or between different parts of the same conductor.
What part of speech is side flash?
Side flash can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of side flash?
The plural of side flash is side flashes.

Words near side flash in the dictionary

  1. side eye
  2. side eyed
  3. side eyeing
  4. side eyes
  5. side eying
  6. side flash
  7. side flashed
  8. side flashes
  9. side flashing
  10. side gaze
  11. side gazes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: side flash (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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Cite this entry: “side flash.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/side_flash. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.