lamp
[lamp]
- any of various devices furnishing artificial light, as by electricity or gas.Compare fluorescent lamp, incandescent lamp.
- a container for an inflammable liquid, as oil, which is burned at a wick as a means of illumination.
- a source of intellectual or spiritual light: the lamp of learning.
- any of various devices furnishing heat, ultraviolet, or other radiation: an infrared lamp.
- a celestial body that gives off light, as the moon or a star.
- a torch.
- lamps, Slang. the eyes.
Show More
- Slang. to look at; eye.
Show More
- smell of the lamp, to give evidence of laborious study or effort: His dissertation smells of the lamp.
Show More
Origin of lamp
1150–1200; Middle English lampe < Old French < Late Latin lampada, for Latin lampas (stem lampad-) < Greek lampás lamp; akin to lámpē torch, lamp, lámpein to shine
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for lamp
Contemporary Examples
Another Dem who has been just a heart-beat (or a lamp bash) away from being president.
“When Tibor died we did a retrospective of MCo., and the lamp was the last thing you saw,” she says.
That he ends up not lighting a lamp but tangled in the cobwebs is one of the truths of this valuable book.
So she picks up this lamp and throws it at me across the room.
I put the lamp down (much to the anxiety of the hovering salesman).
Historical Examples
Phidias has returned; and he likes to have no lamp burn later than his own.
PhilotheaLydia Maria Child
He lighted the lamp, turned down the wick, and replaced the chimney.
Way of the LawlessMax Brand
Yet he glances behind him and shivers, while the lamp burns pale.
Other Tales and SketchesNathaniel Hawthorne
Then, mechanically, his hand went to the lamp on the table back of the couch.
Within the LawMarvin Dana
She was reading by the lamp, and the door into the hall stood open.
KMary Roberts Rinehart
lamp
- any of a number of devices that produce illuminationan electric lamp; a gas lamp; an oil lamp
- (in combination)lampshade
- a device for holding one or more electric light bulbsa table lamp
- a vessel in which a liquid fuel is burned to supply illumination
- any of a variety of devices that produce radiation, esp for therapeutic purposesan ultraviolet lamp
Show More
Word Origin
C13 lampe, via Old French from Latin lampas, from Greek, from lampein to shine
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for lamp
n.
c.1200, from Old French lampe "lamp, lights" (12c.), from Latin lampas "a light, torch, flambeau," from Greek lampas "torch, lamp, beacon, meteor, light," from lampein "to shine," from nasalized form of PIE root *lap- "to shine" (cf. Lithuanian lope "light," Old Irish lassar "flame"). Replaced Old English leohtfæt "light vessel." To smell of the lamp "be a product of laborious night study" is from 1570s.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
lamp
(lămp)- A device that generates light, heat, or therapeutic radiation.
Show More
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.