lamplighter

[ lamp-lahy-ter ]

/ ˈlæmpˌlaɪ tər /

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noun

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

a contrivance for lighting lamps.

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Origin of lamplighter

First recorded in 1740–50; lamp + lighter¹

Words nearby lamplighter

lamper eel, lampern, lampers, lampion, lamplight, lamplighter, lamp oil, lampoon, lamppost, lamprey, lamprophony

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use lamplighter in a sentence

But this was the last summer of the late century, and already I was beginning to get about like a lamplighter on my two sticks.
No Hero|E.W. Hornung
I know a town where the lamplighter twenty years ago was an honest old man of the blind and bigoted type.
The Book of This and That|Robert Lynd
The pavement stretched empty and darkening in front of her, and at the far end the lamplighter had started on his luminous round.
Arundel|Edward Frederic Benson
The street-sweeper had long since gone; soon would come a lamplighter extinguishing the street lamps; now all was quiet.
The Debit Account|Oliver Onions

Miss Lydia rolled her handkerchief into a wabbly lamplighter; she seemed to have nothing to say.
An Old Chester Secret|Margaret Deland

British Dictionary definitions for lamplighter

lamplighter

/ (ˈlæmpˌlaɪtə) /

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