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

As far as the touch football game, my only advice is to kickoff in daylight.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

My own report from Dexter was a horror show: massive, insulation-free gaps between interior and exterior walls, revealing chunks of stone and lath that had last seen daylight when James Madison was president.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

A massive operation has been launched to find the men who robbed the van in the heart of Bengaluru city in daylight.

Read more on BBC

Eventually they left, with a threat to return in the morning and search the whole place twice as thoroughly in the daylight.

Read more on Literature

Even in the daylight he made Penelope nervous, though, and now—what was he doing here, in the dead of night?

Read more on Literature

Related Words

• dawn 
• daytime 
• sunlight 
• sunshine