Deadlight
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A strong (often wooden) shutter fitted over a porthole, that can be closed in bad weather to keep water out and discourage the glass windows from breaking.
- 2 a strong shutter over a ship's porthole that is closed in stormy weather wordnet
- 3 A deck prism, a device to allow light into the cabin of boat through the deck.
- 4 An eye. archaic, figuratively
"Here you comes and tells me of it plain; and here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed deadlights!"
- 5 An eyelid. archaic, figuratively
"He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he'd never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it."
Example
More examples"Here you comes and tells me of it plain; and here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed deadlights!"
Etymology
From dead + light.
Related phrases
More for "deadlight"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.