How to Use alight in a Sentence

alight

1 of 2 verb
  • A group of tourists alighted from the boat.
  • There are just too many doorsteps, and too many things that need to alight on them.
    Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 28 June 2023
  • Birds can flap their wings to swoop, dive, glide, and alight on perches.
    Adam Hadhazy, Discover Magazine, 8 Feb. 2013
  • Just lie back, gaze upward, and streaks of bright light should alight your eyes.
    Brian Resnick, Vox, 22 June 2018
  • The 300 Angels are alighting today because it was declared the date of the founding of the city.
    Doug MacCash, NOLA.com, 7 May 2018
  • Bomber rose, dove, and then alighted on Mr. Freeman’s glove.
    New York Times, 17 Jan. 2018
  • Much of the blame would alight on Mr. Gandhi’s leadership.
    Sadanand Dhume, WSJ, 15 Nov. 2018
  • The Zaks wondered how the spill would affect birds, who could alight on an oily patch and absorb it in their feathers.
    Matthew Ormseth, courant.com, 21 Jan. 2018
  • Woodpeckers will sometimes alight on your house and start their rat-a-tat heading.
    Adrian Higgins, Washington Post, 17 July 2019
  • There are beach breezes alighting on areas of my skin that have never felt breezes before.
    Kaitlin Menza, Marie Claire, 29 Sep. 2017
  • During that stay, the pair took a bus to Washington, alighting at the Greyhound station.
    John Kelly, Washington Post, 31 July 2023
  • Visitors never forgot the roar of the big birds alighting.
    Times Staff, Los Angeles Times, 28 Mar. 2023
  • Many protesters set their headscarves alight or hacked off their hair, and called for the downfall of the Iranian regime.
    Adela Suliman, Washington Post, 6 Oct. 2022
  • On cue, a pair of birds appeared, swooping through the air and alighting on dead trees to attack them like jackhammers.
    Justin Gillis, The Seattle Times, 11 Aug. 2017
  • At the end of the six-minute boat ride, alighting on a dock in East Boston, Ms. Medvedow strode through an active shipyard and marina.
    New York Times, 22 June 2018
  • He's used to living like an emperor who relished nothing more than circling the globe and alighting to pose with heads of state.
    Shawn Tully, Fortune, 10 Jan. 2020
  • The rockets hit at random, setting buildings and at least one car alight over different city blocks.
    New York Times, 17 Apr. 2022
  • The music fans who would have streamed into Coachella and the cinephiles alighting in Cannes retrace ancient routs and rites of pilgrimage.
    New York Times, 20 Mar. 2020
  • Milroe’s beautiful streak across and down the field on that 3rd-and-15 brought Alabama out of the darkness, and then Gibbs set this land of midnight Walmart alight with fire that chased down the dawn.
    Joseph Goodman | Jgoodman@al.com, al, 1 Oct. 2022
  • On this evening, Washington is alight with media stakeouts.
    Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 20 July 2017
  • The Lake Erie coastline is should expect billions of the annoying bugs to alight on signs, walls, patio furniture and just about any outdoor space in the next few weeks.
    Mary Kilpatrick, cleveland.com, 18 June 2019
  • Soon my wandering eye alighted on the next table, where two men were slurping a verdant broth — green curry pho.
    Brooke Hauser, BostonGlobe.com, 6 Sep. 2023
  • Among the passengers who alighted was a young woman from Santa Barbara.
    Peter Rowe, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 Aug. 2019
  • And on Monday night, a bouquet of flowers alight with Christmas ornaments appeared in front of vacant homes.
    Los Angeles Times, 23 Dec. 2020
  • His face is alight with the glow of discovery—equal parts scientific interest and little-boy hope.
    Mike Sager, Smithsonian, 13 Sep. 2017
  • For some time, there has been an assumption that — at one point or another — the Premier League will inevitably alight upon its own version of this approach.
    Rory Smith, New York Times, 8 Dec. 2023
  • To simply point out that Trump had improbably managed to alight on the correct course of action was to have written a favorable profile of Osama bin Laden.
    WSJ, 15 Feb. 2021
  • Google’s Snow Games festivities kick off with a magpie, a good luck symbol in Korea, alighting on the Google logo before a stiff winter wind blows in an icy frost.
    Eli Meixler, Time, 9 Feb. 2018
  • That flight became public when his wife, Louise Linton, posted an Instagram photo of herself alighting from the plane, and then sniped at a commenter.
    David A. Graham, The Atlantic, 29 Sep. 2017
  • To then, not return to the carriage at the destination stop to check whether the passenger has been able to successfully alight, is frankly lazy at best and broadly negligent.
    Gus Alexiou, Forbes, 26 June 2022
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alight

2 of 2 adjective
  • The sky was alight with stars.
  • Enemy soldiers set the building alight.
  • Yet his bland style has not set the broader electorate alight.
    Washington Post, 16 Jan. 2021
  • Detectives think it was set alight sometime in the past 15 days.
    Washington Post, 11 Aug. 2021
  • The United States is alight with the flame of revolution.
    Time, 5 June 2020
  • The black flame candle is alight to the Sanderson sisters’ delight.
    Alexia Fernández, PEOPLE.com, 1 Nov. 2021
  • The black flame candle is alight to the Sanderson sisters' delight.
    Chloe Melas, CNN, 2 Nov. 2021
  • Less than an hour before the game started the skies were alight with lightning and a heavy downpour deluged the field.
    Brendan Kurie, BostonGlobe.com, 13 Nov. 2021
  • For nearly two weeks, the Scottsdale Waterfront will be alight with large-scale works by artists from around the world.
    Kimi Robinson, The Arizona Republic, 2 Nov. 2021
  • Adults carrying babies and holding the hands of young children alight from the craft.
    Los Angeles Times, 23 Mar. 2021
  • At the end of the evening, the audience filed out, masks still on, eyes alight with elation at having finally heard a show.
    Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 7 June 2021
  • The first victims are seabirds, graceful creatures that alight upon the ocean’s surface.
    Los Angeles Times, 5 Oct. 2021
  • Three Thousand Years of Longing were allowed to have their fun, setting the red carpet alight.
    Douglas Greenwood, Vogue, 30 May 2022
  • In video verified by NBC News, the wail of sirens can be heard as huge flames licked up multiple stories of the building after it was set alight by the crash.
    Phil McCausland, NBC News, 17 Oct. 2022
  • The main event will be more than enough: a chance for fans to rediscover — and fall back in love with — an album that kept them alight through some very difficult years.
    Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 9 May 2022
  • Videos of burning Ukrainian wheat fields set alight by Russian forces are making the rounds on social media.
    Eric Tegler, Forbes, 12 July 2022
  • Residents will be able to dive off at one side and alight at the other, which is certainly a glamorous, if damp, way to call in on your neighbors.
    Maureen O'Hare, CNN, 26 Apr. 2021
  • Toward the end of July, the goldfinches alight on the tall stalks of purple and yellow meadow rue, setting off ripples of movement.
    Nancy Hass Ngoc Minh Ngo, New York Times, 23 Sep. 2022
  • The sweep of the park downslope from the Music Center toward City Hall was alight with marigolds and altars of different expressions and themes.
    Los Angeles Times, 31 Oct. 2021
  • Canadian artist Cassils has been set alight on stage, wrestled a 2,000-pound block of clay in the pitch dark and trained as a bodybuilder on a cocktail of steroids, raw eggs and protein.
    Leah Dolan, CNN, 13 Oct. 2021
  • Art finds a way to occupy almost any material and alight in any tool.
    Jerry Saltz, Vulture, 15 Apr. 2021
  • Dozens of trucks carrying lumber have been set alight in furious protest.
    Eduardo Thomson, Bloomberg.com, 15 Oct. 2020
  • More than 330 vehicles were set alight in Oromia, an area in the center of the country, as well as the capital Addis Ababa.
    Fox News, 24 July 2020
  • At checkpoints, choking plumes of black smoke rise from burning tires set alight by security forces to keep warm.
    New York Times, 7 Feb. 2022
  • And so late one night, when a young man and woman alight from a carriage and enter the house next door — a house that Miss Butterworth knows to be vacant — and the man leaves alone, well, Amelia is all over it.
    Anna Katharine Green, Star Tribune, 25 Sep. 2020
  • The black mother-of-pearl dial is alight with bright jasmine flowers, and Top Wesselton diamonds mark the hours.
    Nancy Olson, Forbes, 30 Oct. 2021
  • Several Palestinians this week flew kites with oil-drenched, burning rags on their tails in an attempt to set alight Israeli fields on the other side of the fence.
    Rory Jones, WSJ, 20 Apr. 2018
  • Twitter and LinkedIn are alight with loud voices calling the start of an economic apocalypse and the collapse of the housing market.
    Q.ai - Powering A Personal Wealth Movement, Forbes, 22 Mar. 2023
  • Wonder which royal stories will set Twitter alight in 2021!
    Emily Dixon, Marie Claire, 15 Dec. 2020
  • Brathwaite saw a young man taking photos in a dark jazz club without the use of a flash, and his mind became alight with possibility.
    Wallace Ludel, CNN, 4 Apr. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'alight.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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