lighten

«lighten» in Mova's school dictionary: to make it less heavy: lighten your bag — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (lighten, lightens, lightened, lightening)

meaning for a pupil

1) To lighten something is to make it less heavy: lighten your bag. tree →

2) To lighten is to make or become brighter or paler in colour: the sky lightened. tree →

3) To lighten a mood or a job is to make it easier or happier: a joke lightened the mood. tree →

4) Lighten up (informal) means relax and stop being so serious. tree →

5) Lighten can also mean to flash with lightning, as in a storm. tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday life: lighten the load, lighten the mood. In art: lighten a colour by adding white. In stories: «Her face lightened when she saw him.» Informal: «Lighten up!»

examples

• Take out some books to lighten your schoolbag. tree →
• The sky lightened as the sun came up. tree →
• Add white to lighten the blue paint. tree →
• Grandpa's jokes lightened the mood. tree →
• Helping each other lightens the work. tree →
• Oh, lighten up — it's only a game! tree →
• Her face lightened when she heard the good news. tree →
• One night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the rain streamed down in torrents. tree →

note

-ing form: lightening (no extra n). Trap: «lightening» (making lighter) vs «lightning» (the flash in a storm). Opposite: darken, or for weight: make heavier.

In the corpora

• For Thou art my lamp, O LORD; and the LORD doth lighten my darkness.
• Behold Thou, and answer me, O LORD my God; lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;
• For Thou dost light my lamp; the LORD my God doth lighten my darkness.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «lighten» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.