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.
- Slang. to look at; eye.
- smell of the lamp, to give evidence of laborious study or effort: His dissertation smells of the lamp.
Origin of lamp
Examples from the Web for lamp
Contemporary Examples of lamp
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 of lamp
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
Word Origin for lamp
Word Origin and History for lamp
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.
lamp
(lămp)- A device that generates light, heat, or therapeutic radiation.