klieg light
1
9.8
- noun
- /ˈkliːɡ laɪt/
- Archaic
:
luz Klieg
- The hours pile on, noon comes and goes, the klieg lights begin to dim, but the heat is turned up higher.
- glare of klieg lights
- klieg lights shine
They lit it with huge, what they call klieg lights, which are very strong.
- They lit it with huge, what they call klieg lights, which are very strong.
Examples
-
Klieg lights paint her features a bleak white on black. M.J. and Ruben work the scene along with the crime tech crew.
Fiction book (1995) -
She'd almost expected to see Klieg lights set up on the front lawn waiting to light her arrival.
Fiction book (2002) -
They lit it with huge, what they call klieg lights, which are very strong.
-
The klieg lights shone on his head, making a halo of his near-perfect hair.
Fiction book (1998) -
Inside the giant, billowy white tents, the massive klieg lights glare down from the ceiling all night long.
Blog text (15) -
Frank watches, his eyes scanning, searching the vast theatre, squinting as he tries to see beyond the glare of the klieg lights and the cameras.
Fiction book (1992) -
The director used a powerful klieg light to ensure the cast was beautifully illuminated during the shoot.
-
As they set up the scene, the team positioned the klieg lights to create dramatic shadows.
-
The klieg lights brightened the stage, making it the focal point of the evening's event.
Synonyms
49
2.9
A strong focused lamp that lights one person or a small area on stage
1
8.1
A lamp that makes very bright light when electricity jumps between two metal rods
An electric lamp that makes very bright light by an arc of electricity between two carbon rods
Surface Forms
Morphology
klieg + light
The headword 'light' clearly signals the basic category (a type of lamp), so a learner who knows the constituents will infer it is some kind of light. However 'klieg' is an eponymic/technical label with no transparent lexical meaning for learners, so the specific sense (a powerful carbon arc lamp used in film/TV) is not derivable from the parts.
Etymology
Klieg light comes from the name of the Kliegl brothers, who made very bright, hot lamps for early movie and stage sets, and the name came to mean the lamp itself. That's why klieg light means 'a very powerful lamp used in film and television'.