candle-light

See also: candle light and candlelight

English

Noun

candle-light (uncountable)

1. Archaic form of candlelight.
   • 1596, Tho[mas] Nashe, “Dialogus”, in Haue with You to Saffron-Walden. Or, Gabriell Harveys Hunt is Up. […], London: […] John Danter, →OCLC; republished as J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, Have with You to Saffron-Walden (Miscellaneous Tracts; Temp. Eliz. and Jac. I), [London: s.n., 1870], →OCLC, page 44:

     O! it is divine and moſt admirable, and ſo farre beyond all that ever he publiſhed heretofore, as day-light beyond candle-light, or tinſell or leafe-gold above arſedine; […]

   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part II (books IV–VI), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, page 496:

     The fight of whom, though now decayd and mard, / And eke but hardly ſeene by candle-light, / Yet like a Diamond of rich regard, / In doubtfull ſhadow of the darkeſome night, / VVith ſtarrie beames about her ſhining bright, / Theſe marchants fixed eyes did ſo amaze, / That what through wonder, & what through delight, / A while on her they greedily did gaze, / And did her greatly like, and did her greatly praize.

   • 1695, [William] Congreve, Love for Love: A Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act V, scene ii, pages 76–77:

     Fifty a contemptible Age! Not at all, a very faſhionable Age I think—I aſſure you, I know very conſiderable Beaus, that ſet a good Face upon Fifty,. Fifty! I have ſeen Fifty in a ſide Box by Candle-light, out-bloſſom Five and Twenty.

   • 1780 April 20, Patrick Wilson, “XXVI. An Account of a Most Extraordinary Degree of Cold at Glasgow in January Last; together with Some New Experiments and Observations on the Comparative Temperature of Hoar-frost and the Air near to It, Made at the Macfarlane Observatory Belonging to the College. […]”, in Philosophical Transactions, of the Royal Society of London, volume LXX, part II, London: […] Lockyer Davis, and Peter Elmsly, printers to the Royal Society, →OCLC, page 469:

     The ſheets of brovvn paper being ſo thin acquired it ſooneſt, and vvhen beheld in candle-light they became beautifully ſpangled over by innumerable reflections from the ſmall cryſtals of hoar-froſt vvhich had parted from the air.

   • 1794 October 31, John Dalton, “Extraordinary Facts Relating to the Vision of Colours: With Observations”, in Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, volume V, part 1, Manchester: Printed by George Nicholson for Cadell and Davies, published 1798, →OCLC, page 36:

     Most of the colours called drabs appear to me the same by day-light and candle-light.

   • 1817, T. Munro, Life, i. 511:

     I am now finishing this letter by candle-light, with the help of a handkerchief tied over the shade.

   • 1828, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XX, in Pelham; or, The Adventures of a Gentleman. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 196:

     I rose by candle-light, and consumed, in the intensest application, the hours which every other individual of our party wasted in enervating slumbers, from the hesternal dissipation or debauch.

   • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “Stave Two. The First of the Three Spirits.”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC, page 50:

     There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

   • 1882 December 30, “A London Fog”, in Punch, or The London Charivari, volume 83, London: Published at the office, 85, Fleet Street, →OCLC, page 301, column 1:

     You rise by candle-light or gaslight, swearing / There never was a climate made like ours; / If rashly you go out to take an airing, / The soot-flakes come in black Plutonian show'rs.

   • 1908, Henry James, chapter XV, in The Portrait of a Lady (The Novels and Tales of Henry James; III), New York edition, volume I, Boston, Mass., New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC; republished as The Portrait of a Lady (EBook #2833), United States: Project Gutenberg, 1 September 2001:

     […] the big dark dining table twinkled here and there in the small candle-light; […]

   • 1923, David Herbert Lawrence, Kangaroo, page 385:

     This dark, passionate religiousness and inward sense of an inwelling magnificence, direct flow from the unknowable God, this filled Richard's heart first, and human love seemed such a fighting for candle-light, when the dark is so much better.

   • 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine:

     They would kick off their shoes and play piquet by candle-light.