What's the difference between alight and plight?

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.

Plight


Definition:

  • () imp. & p. p. of Plight, to pledge.
  • () imp. & p. p. of Pluck.
  • (v. t.) To weave; to braid; to fold; to plait.
  • (n.) A network; a plait; a fold; rarely a garment.
  • (n.) That which is exposed to risk; that which is plighted or pledged; security; a gage; a pledge.
  • (n.) Condition; state; -- risk, or exposure to danger, often being implied; as, a luckless plight.
  • (n.) To pledge; to give as a pledge for the performance of some act; as, to plight faith, honor, word; -- never applied to property or goods.
  • (n.) To promise; to engage; to betroth.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Now, a small Scottish charity, Edinburgh Direct Aid – moved by their plight and aware that the language of Lebanese education is French and English and that Syria is Arabic – is delivering textbooks in Arabic to the school and have offered to fund timeshare projects across the country.
  • (2) A 76-year-old British national has been held in an Iranian jail for more than four years and convicted of spying, his family has revealed, as they seek to draw attention to the plight of a man they describe as one of the “oldest and loneliest prisoners in Iran”.
  • (3) A prominent gay rights activist, Nikolai Alexeev, said although Fry's letter "won't change anything" at the Olympics, it would help raise awareness of the plight of LGBT Russians.
  • (4) Greece's desperate plight hovers over the meeting, although formally there is no mention of Greece on the agenda or in the statements drafted for the meeting.
  • (5) Persistent media highlighting of the plight of patients suffering from severe fatigue of unknown cause (postviral fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis) has at last been matched by professional attention.
  • (6) "But if it keeps their plight and the plight of the Arctic in the press, I think she would be happy to do it."
  • (7) What he didn’t foresee was that getting to know people more intimately would result in his using portraits – more than 130 so far – to raise awareness of the plight of chronic homelessness generally or that he would become passionately vocal about what has been an entrenched issue for a number of US cities for decades.
  • (8) Sting – a man who had split the Police to pursue a more adult-oriented career, and who would in the following year ponder such poptastic issues as how much Russians loved their children and the plight of miners – took that job in 1984, while this year it falls to Guy Garvey, who may as well just change his middle name to 6Music.
  • (9) Victims of the Great Depression were there in plain sight, the unemployed queuing up in breadlines, their plight unambiguous.
  • (10) Qatar had vowed to reform the industry after the Guardian exposed the desperate plight of many of its migrant workers last year.
  • (11) I keep going and going and going.” 17) Being ahead of the curve July 2008: Two years before the Qatar vote, addresses the plight of exploited workers denied liveable pay and conditions.
  • (12) The legitimate focus on the plight of refugees on Nauru has overshadowed the impact of Australian policies on that island nation, a closely integrated society of just 10,000 people.
  • (13) Last week the International Consortium of British Pensioners (ICBP), which represents expat campaigning groups in Australia and Canada, launched its new Pension Justice website , aimed at highlighting their plight.
  • (14) Few measures have elicited more anger – or ingenious forms of revolt – than the property tax announced by Greek ministers to plug a budget black hole that might have gone unnoticed had Greece's plight not threatened the entire eurozone.
  • (15) With 73,000 people killed and large parts of its cities and villages destroyed in the north by the disaster, the plight of 2.5 million people left homeless hung in the balance.
  • (16) They seem to be unaware of the plight of this particular group of British savers.
  • (17) We have long been campaigning on the issue of income drawdown restrictions and so are pleased to see the government taking heed of the plight of these savers.
  • (18) But the strike proved a seminal moment in the British labour movement, drawing attention to the overlooked plight of female migrant workers – and generating admiration for Desai's tenacity.
  • (19) As for Aloisi's plight, Popovic declined to offer advice.
  • (20) Restrictions on local news agencies and newspapers seem to have eased recently with a few going as far as breaking the taboo on reporting the plight of political prisoners or the house arrests of opposition leaders.