Lamp

Lamp, lamp, n. a vessel for burning oil with a wick, and so giving light: a light of any kind.—v.i. (Spens.) to shine.—ns. Lamp′ad (rare), a lamp or candlestick, a torch; Lamp′adary, in the Greek Church, one who looks after the lamps and carries a lighted taper before the patriarch; Lampaded′romy, an ancient Greek torch-race in honour of Prometheus, &c.; Lamp′adist, one who ran in a torch-race; Lampad′omancy, the art of divining by the flame of a lamp or torch; Lamp′black, the black substance formed by the smoke of a lamp: the soot or amorphous carbon obtained by burning bodies rich in that element, such as resin, petroleum, and tar, or some of the cheap oily products obtained from it; Lamp′-burn′er, that part of a lamp in which the wick is held; Lamp′-chim′ney, Lamp′-glass, a glass funnel placed round the flame of a lamp; Lamp′-fly (Browning), a firefly.—adj. Lamp′ic, pertaining to, or derived from, a lamp or flame.—ns. Lamp′ion, a kind of small lamp; Lamp′-light, the light shed by a lamp or lamps; Lamp′-light′er, a person employed to light street-lamps: that by which a lamp is lighted, as a spill or torch; Lamp′-post, the pillar supporting a street-lamp; Lamp′-shell, a terebratuloid or related brachiopod having a shell like an antique lamp.—Smell of the lamp, to show signs of great elaboration or study. [Fr. lampe—Gr. lampas, -ados—lampein, to shine.]