lightning

Other forms of lightning

plural

lightnings·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about lightning

What does lightning mean?

lightning means "abrupt electric discharge from cloud to cloud or from cloud to earth accompanied by the emission of light". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in lightning?

lightning has 2 syllables: light-ning. The stress falls on "light". In IPA it is /ˈlaɪtnɪŋ/.

Is lightning a common word?

lightning is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.