sheet lightning - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

sheet lightning (usually uncountable, plural sheet lightnings)

  1. A broad flash of lightning, with no visible bolt, due to reflection.
    • 1812, General view of the agriculture, state of property, and improvements in the county of Dumfries‎[1]:
      In most very warm days in summer the thermometer stands above 70 degrees on the scale of Fahrenheit, about the centre of the county; in the summer of 1811, it stood repeatedly above 80°; and on the 25th of May, 1807, during the time when the sheet lightning of tropical regions appeared, about three in the afternoon, it stood at 92° in the shade within three miles of Moffat!
    • 1859 October, “Marvels of Thunder-Storms”, in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art‎[2], page 216:
      It probably belongs to the class we are accustomed to call sheet lightnings, for these are by far the most frequent in an ordinary storm.
    • 1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 36:
      He was silent for a long time, redreaming the dreams that he had dreamed eight years ago, but through them all ran, as sheet-lightning through golden cloud, the light of Mrs. Hauksbee's violet eyes.
    • 1890 January, William Marriott, “Second report of the thunderstorm committee”, in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society‎[3], volume 16, number 73:
      The occurrence of sheet lightning in a particular district did not necessarily involve that a thunderstorm was experienced there, for it frequently happened that the storm was a long way off.
    • 2014, Karen Bassie-Sweet, Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities‎[4], page 95:
      K'iche' diviners believe that they have a kind of soul in their blood in the form of sheet lightning.