southern lights

1 5.1

Bright natural lights in the sky near the South Pole

noun

: aurora austral

The breathtaking spectacle of the southern lights can be observed from various locations in the Southern Hemisphere, including parts of New Zealand.
northern and southern lights

Examples

This creates an Aurora like northern or southern lights, but on the star, and that's what they think they've seen.
With a large enough flare, the Southern Hemisphere would see a magnificent display of southern lights as some of the charged particles spiraled down the magnetic field lines to the geomagnetic South Pole.

Fiction book (1999)
The southern lights, also known as aurora australis, create stunning displays of green and pink light in the sky over Antarctica.
On clear nights, the southern lights illuminate the dark sky, captivating everyone who has the chance to see them.

Synonyms

aurora

vssouthern lights

Specialized

12 7.4

Bright moving lights in the night sky near the North or South Pole

is the same phenomenon but restricted to the Southern Hemisphere near the pole

aurora australis

vssouthern lights

Specialized

1 8.1

A natural light show in the southern sky near the South Pole

has identical meaning but differs only in the name used

Surface Forms

southern lights singular

southern lights plural

southern light singular

Morphology

southern + light

The phrase combines the adjective 'southern' (from the south) with 'lights' (luminous phenomena), so a learner who knows both words can infer it denotes lights seen in southern regions — in context this maps onto the aurora in the Southern Hemisphere. The compositional structure matches common cross-linguistic patterns (e.g. 'northern lights'), so the meaning is directly derivable from the constituents for a B1 learner.

Etymology

The noun southern lights names the bright, dancing colors you can see in the sky near the South Pole. southern means 'from the south' and lights are the glowing colors, so the phrase means the 'light show in the southern sky'.