lightning bug
Americannoun
-
lightning bugs
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of lightning bug
An Americanism dating back to 1770–80
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I half-expect him to leave a trail of argent, fading light in his wake, like a lightning bug.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 15, 2016
In the end, only Phelps was an Olympics lightning bug.
From New York Times ● Aug. 6, 2016
We know it as the firefly, or lightning bug, an insect that transforms the sultry summer evening into a veil laced with sequins.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 5, 2016
And people have been following that lightning bug all over America.”
From Washington Times ● Jan. 22, 2016
Max was the tenderhearted one who got upset at so much as a caterpillar accidentally crushed underfoot, or a dead lightning bug caught in the grille of his family’s limousine.
From "The School for Whatnots" by Margaret Peterson Haddix
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
