rushlight
- noun
- Archaic
- The rushlight flickered in the dark room.
Examples
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The room was growing dark, so the woman left a rushlight in a saucer on the floor before shutting the door softly behind her.
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The old cottage was lit only by a single rushlight on the table.
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By the dim glow of a rushlight, she read her letter late into the night.
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He recalled evenings spent working by rushlight before the advent of gas lamps.
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She lit a rushlight to read her book.
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I busied myself snuffing the rushlight, willing my face to remain impassive.
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He sat with a tableau on his lap and his riding boots on my desk, sketching with charcoal by the dim rushlight.
Synonyms
A stick or block of wax with a wick that you burn for light
A long thin candle used for light
A candle made by putting a wick into wax many times
A candle that uses a plant stem as the wick and animal fat to make light
How Bright
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
The word rushlight comes from the plant rush ('a reed') and the word light ('a flame'). People soaked the dried inner part of a rush in fat to make a thin candle, so a rushlight was literally a 'rush' that gave 'light'.