Lamplighter
noun
noun ·3 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A person employed to light streetlights at dusk and snuff them at dawn. historical
"1,000 crossing-sweepers; another thousand chimney-sweeps, and the same number of turncocks and lamp-lighters;"
- 2 (when gas was used for streetlights) a person who lights and extinguishes streetlights wordnet
- 3 Any device or contrivance for lighting lamps, such as a length of paper to be set alight at one end. historical
"[…] and finally, laughing and all tired out, they stopped to rest and to think of some other game. They played “Buz” till they were rested, and then “Genteel Lady,” where every time a little girl made a mistake she had to have a lamplighter stuck in her hair."
- 4 A kind of tall bicycle.
Example
More examples"1,000 crossing-sweepers; another thousand chimney-sweeps, and the same number of turncocks and lamp-lighters;"
Etymology
From lamp + lighter.
Related phrases
More for "lamplighter"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.