heat lightning

1. 1.

   bright flashes of light near the horizon without thunder (especially on hot evenings); usually attributed to distant lightning that is reflected by clouds

   Broaderlightning

Questions about heat lightning

What does heat lightning mean?

heat lightning means "bright flashes of light near the horizon without thunder (especially on hot evenings); usually attributed to distant lightning that is reflected by clouds".

Is heat lightning a common word?

heat lightning is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.