lightning bug

American

noun

firefly.

lightning bug British

noun

another name for the firefly

"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

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

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

Surprisingly, some of the singers also miss the mark, sometimes just by millimeters, but as Mark Twain observed, that's the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

From Los Angeles Times • May 1, 2015

Beside him in the darkness the coal of her cigarette glowed like the rump of a complacent lightning bug: a steady, unwavering index of Rachael Rosen’s achievement.

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023