daylight

[dey-lahyt]

noun

1. the light of day.

   At the end of the tunnel they could see daylight.

2. public knowledge or awareness; openness.

   The newspaper article brought the scandal out into the daylight.

3. the period of day; daytime.

4. daybreak; dawn.

5. a clear space or gap, especially between two people or things that should be close together, as between the knees of a horseback rider and a saddle.

6. disagreement or mental distance between two people.

   There's very little daylight between the two senators' stances on the issue.

7. Informal.,  daylights, mental soundness, consciousness, or wits: I'd like to beat/knock the daylights out of him!

   The noise scared the daylights out of us.

   I'd like to beat/knock the daylights out of him!

adjective

1. Photography.,  of, relating to, or being film made for exposure by the natural light of day.

verb (used with object)

daylighted, daylit, daylighting. 

1. to suffuse (an interior space) with artificial light or with daylight filtered through translucent materials, as roofing panels.

daylight

/ ˈdeɪˌlaɪt /

noun

1. 1. light from the sun

   2. ( as modifier )

      daylight film

2. the period when it is light; daytime

3. daybreak

4. 1. to understand something previously obscure

   2. to realize that the end of a difficult task is approaching

Other Word Forms

• predaylight noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of daylight¹

A Middle English word dating back to 1175–1225; day , light ¹

Idioms and Phrases

Idioms

1. see daylight, to progress to a point where completion of a difficult task seems possible or probable.

More idioms and phrases containing daylight

• beat the living daylights out of
• begin to see daylight
• in broad daylight
• let daylight through
• scare out of one's wits (the living daylights out of)

Example Sentences

You may already have noticed that the nights are drawing in - in fact we are currently losing four or five minutes of daylight every day.

Read more on BBC

Sunrise alarm clocks can help with that too - they mimic daylight and start gradually getting brighter before they ring.

Read more on BBC

Aaron Reitz, then an assistant attorney general, led a roundtable with the families and said he was disappointed that the cells “have windows to see daylight.”

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Desai said there was no “daylight or disagreement between the Commerce Department and White House on this issue.”

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

They were standing in broad daylight in a Brooklyn park playing the “ping pong shake,” a game in which they were to shake ping-pong balls out of an empty Kleenex box strapped to their waist.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• dawn 
• daytime 
• sunlight 
• sunshine