What's the difference between alight and lighten?

Alight


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To spring down, get down, or descend, as from on horseback or from a carriage; to dismount.
  • (v. i.) To descend and settle, lodge, rest, or stop; as, a flying bird alights on a tree; snow alights on a roof.
  • (v. i.) To come or chance (upon).
  • (a.) Lighted; lighted up; in a flame.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Alighting upon the final four songs recorded by Drake, he pressed play and began to make notes before setting about mixing them for this putative release.
  • (2) The promise of exclusive photos and an "official chatroom" doesn't exactly set our world alight – but White is also promising subscribers four 7" records, four 12" records and four new T-shirts a year.
  • (3) Others wrecked the villa interior, poured fuel on the floor and set it alight.
  • (4) Villas of government officials were set alight and gunfire erupted in several districts of the city.
  • (5) (An official report later concluded that one of the men had set the van alight, killed the other and then himself.)
  • (6) That expectation was realized, with passengers from the oldest age groups having the highest relative frequency of accidents and vehicles with three steps being involved in a disproportionately large share of boarding and alighting accidents.
  • (7) In the small hours of the previous morning, an attacker had forced open a shutter, broken a window and set the inside alight .
  • (8) "I could be an MP…" And it suddenly occurs to me that Gardiner might just have alighted on the perfect profession for his skills.
  • (9) In a running confrontation, both sides threw molotov cocktails, one of which set alight a makeshift barricade in the foyer.
  • (10) Didcot resident Steve Shadbolt told the Oxford Mail that he looked across at the power station and realised that one of the towers was alight: “It burnt so fiercely that it spread to the next one ... it was quite a blaze.” The energy secretary, Ed Davey, said: “First, I want to thank the emergency services who are at Didcot working to tackle the blaze.
  • (11) Some of these new converts have alighted upon the basic income as an answer to our fragmenting welfare state.
  • (12) Cars were set alight and there were unconfirmed reports of petrol bombs being thrown.
  • (13) Falun Gong groups overseas dispute that - and in 2011 a man set himself alight near the site of the car crash.
  • (14) Tens of thousands of hectares of forest have been alight for more than two months as a result of slash and burn – the fastest and quickest way to clear land for new plantations.
  • (15) Photograph: Guim “The men shouted as they walked through the station having alighted from the train a short time earlier.
  • (16) Brotherhood spokesmen denied responsibility for the fires, but the local people everywhere say that it was groups of Brothers who attacked the buildings and set them alight.
  • (17) The young Somali woman who set herself alight on Nauru – the second refugee in a week to do so – has been taken to Australia by air ambulance, but her situation remains critical.
  • (18) On Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel, the conservative commentator Sean Hannity recently alighted upon the case of Gordon Cook, a security manager from Merseyside, who used superglue to stick a loose crown into his gum because he was unable to find an NHS dentist.
  • (19) (" Setting a children's hospital alight is hitting the all time low.
  • (20) Bales acknowledged setting the bodies alight with a kerosene lantern.

Lighten


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To descend; to light.
  • (v. i.) To burst forth or dart, as lightning; to shine with, or like, lightning; to display a flash or flashes of lightning; to flash.
  • (v. i.) To grow lighter; to become less dark or lowering; to brighten; to clear, as the sky.
  • (v. t.) To make light or clear; to light; to illuminate; as, to lighten an apartment with lamps or gas; to lighten the streets.
  • (v. t.) To illuminate with knowledge; to enlighten.
  • (v. t.) To emit or disclose in, or as in, lightning; to flash out, like lightning.
  • (v. t.) To free from trouble and fill with joy.
  • (v. t.) To make lighter, or less heavy; to reduce in weight; to relieve of part of a load or burden; as, to lighten a ship by unloading; to lighten a load or burden.
  • (v. t.) To make less burdensome or afflictive; to alleviate; as, to lighten the cares of life or the burden of grief.
  • (v. t.) To cheer; to exhilarate.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Daily subcutaneous injection of L-dopa for 4 weeks into 2-year-old low egg production hens resulted in a lightening of feather color to snow white and increased oviduct and ovary weights and the development of well developed follicles.
  • (2) I ask if he ever wishes the critics would lighten up around him.
  • (3) This unexpected non-linear trend may reflect a progressive tendency toward 'lightening' of sleep with increasing age.
  • (4) Clinical trials on 28 patients with port-wine stains of the face and neck using this laser demonstrated a 75% response rate with greater than 50% lightening of the lesions.
  • (5) Their carefully judged mischief lightened the whole mixture like stiffly beaten egg-whites.
  • (6) But it's also undeniable that Indians who grew up in the 80s and 90s have been in many ways morally and imaginatively conservative: they are the context, for instance, in which wish-fulfilling skin lighteners like Fair & Lovely have flourished.
  • (7) As previously shown with colchicine, preincubation of frog skin with vinblastine, vincristine, or colcemid produced an increase in darkening induced by MSH, as compared to control skins, and a dosage-dependent inhibition of subsequent lightening.
  • (8) Skin-lightening creams are widely used in Taiwan, but their content is poorly controlled.
  • (9) Patients aged between 3 months and 6 years (44 patients) had a better response after the first treatment (55% lightening) than did patients aged between 7 and 14 years (29 patients with a 48% lightening; p = 0.027).
  • (10) By sharing the load, we lighten the load – and together we can chip away at the debt and deficits that are currently costing Australians $1bn every single month in interest, in dead money,” Abbott said in a YouTube video released on Monday.
  • (11) This difference in density is not related to increased sensitivity to ionizing radiation but the degree of post-irradiation change in density (lightening) is proportional to the initial density, i.e.
  • (12) Following a complete repair, the anesthesia of the mothers was allowed to lighten.
  • (13) Forty-one over-the-counter skin lightening creams were analysed for hydroquinone content, and the accuracy of tables of contents supplied with these products was assessed.
  • (14) Advocates of open adoption believe that it lightens and in some cases alleviates the grieving process after relinquishment.
  • (15) In his speech, Hunt also called for the regulatory burden to be lightened for broadcasters to allow them to be more flexible and said Ofcom would be slimmed down under a Tory government.
  • (16) The court said his sentence was lightened because he was an accessory to the murder, not the instigator, and because he had confessed and shown remorse.
  • (17) Over a couple of pints, we cover all the big stuff: Victoria Beckham, rivers of blood, what it'll be like being deputy PM to Boris ("Boris needs me; he needs lightening up"), and the attempt to ban menthol cigarettes .
  • (18) This article describes a simple way to circumvent major internal alteration to the Blue Ray copier to permit an easy and effective lightening process.
  • (19) A properly functioning general-practitioner hospital with good facilities including visiting consultants can greatly lighten the work load of the district general hospital.
  • (20) Substantial lightening or total clearing occurred in 18 (78%) of 23 amateur tattoos and 3 (23%) of 13 professional tattoos in which the protocol was completed.