lamplighter

[lamp-lahy-ter]

noun

a person employed to light and extinguish street lamps, especially those burning gas.

a contrivance for lighting lamps.

Origin of lamplighter

First recorded in 1740–50; lamp + lighter¹

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for lamplighter

Historical Examples of lamplighter

A milk girl was going from door to door, and the lamplighter was vanishing in the distance.
The Golden Shoemaker
J. W. Keyworth
Leo is the son of a good fellow, a shoemaker by trade, and also a lamplighter.
The Sexual Life of the Child
Albert Moll
We watched the slow progress of the lamplighter along the street.
Explorers of the Dawn
Mazo de la Roche
Each man entered the lamplighter's cabin and hung up his lamp on a nail.
Nobody's Boy
Hector Malot
There accompanied her three or four women and a man who was a lamplighter.
Records of The Spanish Inquisition
Andrew Dickson White

British Dictionary definitions for lamplighter

lamplighter

noun

(formerly) a person who lit and extinguished street lamps, esp gas ones

mainly US and Canadian any of various devices used to light lamps

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