How to Use searchlight in a Sentence

searchlight

noun
  • MacArthur and a searchlight display from Navy ships in the harbor at night. ...
    Scott Harrison, latimes.com, 21 May 2017
  • A National Guard unit turned a searchlight on the pitch-dark camp.
    Terence McArdle, Washington Post, 28 July 2017
  • In the most recent image, a pair of searchlight beams blast from each end of the dusty torus around the central star.
    Dave Mosher, WIRED, 30 Apr. 2012
  • Under the glare of his copter’s searchlight, the pilot could see the sub’s hull was awash as the crew clung to the steel safety cable.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 22 May 2022
  • Her voice cuts through these cloudy soundscapes like a searchlight.
    Washington Post, 13 Dec. 2020
  • The searchlight fell upon a pair of heads and shoulders rising above the water.
    New York Times, 28 Jan. 2021
  • Astronomers working on the problem liken it to trying to spot a firefly perched on the edge of a searchlight.
    Corey S Powell, Discover Magazine, 7 Oct. 2015
  • Around midnight, Landrail’s searchlights picked out oil and debris on the surface of the water.
    Joshua Levine, Smithsonian, 19 Apr. 2018
  • The searchlight is so bright that there is no such thing, any more, as obscurity.
    New York Times, 21 Jan. 2021
  • Two searchlights crisscrossed in the sky and gave the event an aura of a Hollywood premiere.
    Douglas C. Towne, azcentral, 30 Apr. 2020
  • The Ferry Building was outlined in colored lights, and a huge searchlight played upon the flag atop it.
    Gary Kamiya, SFChronicle.com, 22 Jan. 2021
  • Overhead, three searchlight beams met, forming a soft halo of haze, through which the rain fell in silver sheets.
    Charles Bethea, The New Yorker, 25 May 2018
  • Sailors claimed to have seen enemy cockpit lights, and searchlights across the water.
    Chris Reeves, The Atlantic, 11 July 2017
  • When the aft searchlight came on, Lieutenant Walsh saw what had rocked the craft: the explosive cracking of a plastic window.
    William J. Broad, New York Times, 18 Nov. 2023
  • Eight searchlights on tops of the buildings will create lighting that appears as a sort of crossroads.
    Domenica Bongiovanni, Indianapolis Star, 17 May 2019
  • Event Series Beach Lights: Watch the boardwalk light up different colors as searchlights move and sway to the beat of music.
    baltimoresun.com, 11 May 2018
  • Finally, at midnight on Aug. 11, the sledges and tractors arrived in a blaze of searchlights and a rumble of engines.
    Dennis Overbye, New York Times, 5 May 2020
  • There are jetty lights, shiplights, brass lanterns, searchlights, deck lights plus porthole windows, a waterwheel in the yard and plenty of places to sit on the dock of the bay.
    Janet Eastman, OregonLive.com, 30 Apr. 2018
  • The light of reason makes searchlights and lighthouses; the love of darkness asks us to adjust our eyes and egos sufficiently to see as owls do.
    Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 20 Feb. 2023
  • CDLs were older, aging tanks fitted with searchlights that flickered their light beams up to six times a second.
    Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, 4 Feb. 2019
  • Journalism has often been a better strobe light than a searchlight.
    Richard Prince, The Root, 26 Oct. 2017
  • There were also minefields, searchlights, high barbed wire fences, and constant patrols.
    National Geographic, 5 June 2016
  • There’s just something about tunneling your escape, avoiding guards and searchlights, that just feels cool.
    The Editors Of Gq, GQ, 13 Apr. 2018
  • During the search, the blue lights of police boats reflected off the waters as a helicopter hovered, shining a searchlight.
    Carli Teproff, miamiherald, 3 July 2017
  • The first Crabbe show had been over only a few minutes when searchlights picked up the dangling figure of Douglas Gee, parachute jumper who will make leaps over the channel each night of the celebration at 8:45.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 6 Sep. 2019
  • On each of the three E’s, the pandemic has acted as a combination of unforgiving stress test and high-powered searchlight.
    Ned Temko, The Christian Science Monitor, 3 Mar. 2021
  • Authorities converged on that spot while the helicopter scanned the area with a searchlight so Schwartz would have to stop moving, according to the sheriff’s office.
    Jared Gilmour, sacbee, 30 Apr. 2018
  • The intersection was brightly lighted—two searchlights played on nearby buildings—and at this hour the area was extremely noisy.
    Charles Bethea, The New Yorker, 25 May 2018
  • But the searchlights also allowed the American gunners to see their adversaries.
    Gary Kamiya, San Francisco Chronicle, 9 June 2018
  • By February 1942, air-raid sirens, searchlights and anti-aircraft guns filled Los Angeles.
    Los Angeles Times, 23 Feb. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'searchlight.' 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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