white lightning
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of white lightning
An Americanism dating back to 1910–15
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.
Seeing the navy uniform with gold-lined white lightning bolts “struck me at the core,” Jefferson said.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 23, 2025
Distraught Dodgers fans — which seems a redundancy, like tuna fish or white lightning — are coping with the loss of their team in various ways.
From Los Angeles Times • May 28, 2014
The President reversed his orders last week after a tempest of protest had been blown up in Washington by that pallid dynamo of political white lightning Dr. Alice Paul, founder of the National Woman's Party.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was black apart from the white lightning bolt down the side—and the screen could have been a porthole into outer space.
From "Stormbreaker" by Anthony Horowitz
A jagged white lightning bolt hit the steeple of the church near the courthouse.
From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George
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.
