Unlight

adj, noun, verb

adj, noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The absence of light; darkness. literary, poetic

    "Those of the Unlight is probably Marduk's most traditional black metal recording, and one of my personal favorites."

Verb
  1. 1
    To extinguish, turn off, or dim the light from rare, transitive

    "His father, in another room, unlights the lamp and leaves the world alone."

  2. 2
    To alight; dismount dialectal, intransitive

    "I would rather take the water unmixed," said I. "Just as you like," said the old soldier; "but please to unlight, and come into my barracks, at all events.""

Adjective
  1. 1
    Not light (“having little weight”). rare

    "And thought to bere him doun; With a launce unlight, He smote him in the lyoun; And Tristrem that was wight […]"

Example

More examples

"His father, in another room, unlights the lamp and leaves the world alone."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From un- + light or, in the case of the verb, perhaps from Middle English *unlighten (suggested by past participle unlight, unlyght, unliȝt (“unlit”)), equivalent to un- + light.

Etymology 2

From Middle English unlighten (“to lighten the burden of; alleviate; dismount from horseback”), equivalent to un- + light (“to alight”).

Etymology 3

From Middle English unlight, unlyght, unliȝt (“not light (in weight)”), equivalent to un- + light.

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.