nightlight

night +‎ light

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nightlight (plural nightlights)

1. a small, dim light or lamp left on overnight
   • 1925, D. H. Lawrence, chapter XVIII, in Louis L. Martz, editor, Quetzalcoatl, New York: New Directions, published 1998, page 310:

     She had brought in with her the night-light that had been burning outside her door. She blew it out.

   • 1974, Anne Sexton, “The Fury of Overshoes”, in The Complete Poems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, published 1981, page 372:

     They made you give up / your nightlight / and your teddy / and your thumb.

   • 1988, Joseph Brodsky, "Gorbunov and Gorchakov" Canto 13 in In Urania, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 165,

     Your light cannot drive off the dark from me— / not any more than night-lights by the bed / drive off my dreams.

   He put a small nightlight in the bathroom to find his way around in the dark.

2. light that shines at night such as moonlight, starlight, etc.
   • 1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure‎, Part Six, Chapter III:

     The floor-cloth deadened his footsteps as he moved in that direction through the obscurity, which was broken only by the faintest reflected night-light from without.

   • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd‎, London: Constable & Co.:

     […] the man held up two small objects faintly twinkling in the nightlight;

   • 1980, William Trevor, chapter 4, in Other People's Worlds, Penguin, published 1982, page 79:

     Their made-up faces were garish in the night-light and as they walked they stared fixedly ahead, afraid to make a sideways glance in case it should be called soliciting.

• light