flashlight

flash +‎ light

• IPA^(key): /ˈflæʃˌlaɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -æʃlaɪt

flashlight (plural flashlights)

1. (US, Canada) A battery-powered hand-held light source.
   • 1997, Saul Bellow, The Actual, New York: Viking, page 32:

     At school he used to do Dr. Jekyll turning into Mr. Hyde, shining a flashlight into his face.

2. A flashgun (device used to create flashes of light for photography).
   • 1943, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XIII, in Gideon Planish, London: Jonathan Cape, page 121:

     He sat in an arm-chair with his forefinger to his temple, and when the photographer's flashlight went off, he hoped that the hotel had caught fire and that this would end it all.

   • 1992, Adam Thorpe, Ulverton, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, published 1994, page 235:

     […] the flashlight exploded like a tiny bomb, making the Vicar jump a little, which explains why his face is a thankful blur, his deadly role forgotten to history (I have the photograph before me now).

   • 2006, Stefan Zweig, translated by Anthea Bell, Chess, London: Penguin:

     […] two or three bright flashlights went off close to us. It seemed that some prominent person was being quickly interviewed by reporters and photographed just before the ship left.

3. (obsolete) A photograph taken with a flash camera.

• (hand-held light source) torch (UK, Aus, NZ)

• pocket light

• (vulgar) find one's ass with both hands and a flashlight
• flashlight fish

• → Cebuano: plaslayt

flashlight (third-person singular simple present flashlights, present participle flashlighting, simple past and past participle flashlit)

1. (transitive) To illuminate with a flashlight.
   • 2011, Bart Bare, Wadmalaw: A Ghost Story, page 51:

     Autis stepped carefully while flashlighting the fog in front of himself and Gar.

• handlamp
• headlamp