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daylight

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈdeɪlaɪt//
  • United States//ˈdeɪˌlaɪt//

The natural light that is ambient in daytime, being mostly sunlight (both direct and indirect, on either sunny days or cloudy days).

noun

  1. 1

    The natural light that is ambient in daytime, being mostly sunlight (both direct and indirect, on either sunny days or cloudy days).

    Meronym: sunbeams

    Near-synonyms: sunlight, sunshine

    In those days the entire factory was lit only by daylight and was closed at night.

  2. 2

    A light source that simulates daylight.

  3. 3

    The intensity distribution of light over the visible spectrum generated by the Sun under various conditions or by other light sources intended to simulate natural daylight.

  4. 4

    The period of time between sunrise and sunset.

    burning daylight

    wasting daylight

    We should get home while it's still daylight.

  5. 5

    Daybreak.

    We had only two hours to work before daylight.

    Towards the following morning, the thermometer fell to 5°; and at daylight, there was not an atom of water to be seen in any direction.

  6. 6

    Exposure to public scrutiny.

    Budgeting a spy organization can't very well be done in daylight.

  7. 7

    A clear, open space.

    All small running backs instinctively run to daylight.

    He could barely see daylight through the complex clockwork.

    Finally, after weeks of work on the project, they could see daylight.

  8. 8

    The space between platens on a press or similar machinery.

    The minimum and maximum daylights on an injection molding machine determines the sizes of the items it can make.

  9. 9

    figurativeEmotional or psychological distance between people, or disagreement.

    We completely agree. There's no daylight between us on the issue.

    Sometimes hosts are a little saltier when the cameras aren’t rolling, but I don’t recall ever hearing any daylight between the views they express on-air and off.

  10. 10

    figurativeMeaningful or noticeable difference or distinction between two things, especially concepts.

    There's not much daylight between saying that the universe is God and saying that God doesn't exist.

  11. 11

    The gap between the top of a drinking-glass and the level of drink it is filled with.

Etymology

From Middle English daye-lighte, dey liȝht, dailiȝt, day-liht, dai-liht (also as days lyȝt, daies liht), equivalent to day + light. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Deegeslucht, Daisljoacht (“daylight”), West Frisian deiljocht (“daylight”), Dutch daglicht (“daylight”), German Tageslicht (“daylight”).

verb

  1. 1

    To expose to daylight

    […] the Morlocks, subterranean for innumerable generations, had come at last to find the daylit surface intolerable.

    […] she was not looking at the daylit, sunny world which she so wanted to see.

  2. 2

    To provide sources of natural illumination such as skylights or windows.

  3. 3

    To allow light in, as by opening drapes.

  4. 4

    To run a drainage pipe to an opening from which its contents can drain away naturally.

  5. 5

    To gain exposure to the open.

    The seam of coal daylighted at a cliff by the river.

    Tunnels were enlarged or daylighted and clearances generally greatly improved.

  6. 6

    To moonlight (work a second, often illicit job) during the daytime.

    But I find that we have a large number of service wives who are daylighting. Some of them are not only working in the evening, but also during the day.

Forms

plural
daylights
past tense
daylighted, daylit
past participle
daylighted, daylit
present participle
daylighting
third person singular
daylights
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).