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Lightning vs Electricity - What's the difference?

lightning | electricity |

As nouns the difference between lightning and electricity

is that lightning is a flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth while electricity is the study of electrical energy; the branch of science dealing with such phenomena.

As an adjective lightning

is extremely fast or sudden.

As a verb lightning

is to produce lightning.

lightning

English

(wikipedia lightning) (wikiversity lightning lecture)

Noun

(en-noun)
  • A flash of light produced by short-duration, high-voltage discharge of electricity within a cloud, between clouds, or between a cloud and the earth.
    • Although we did not see the lightning , we did hear the thunder.
  • * 1901 , E. L. Morris, The Child's Eden , page 16:
    • It was the thought of hot July and August days, when the clouds piled up like woolly mountains, and lightnings streaked the sky.
  • A discharge of this kind.
    • The lightning was hot enough to melt the sand.
    That tree was hit by lightning .
  • * 1881 , Daniel Pierce Thompson, The Green Mountain Boys , page 281:
    • The rain at length ceased; and the lightnings , as they played along the black parapet of clouds, that lay piled in the east, shone with less dazzling fierceness,
  • (figuratively) Anything that moves very fast.
  • * 1918 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), , chapter V:
    • Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking beast and dodged his opponent's thrust with ease. Then he raced to the rear of the tremendous thing and seized it by the tail.
  • The act of making bright, or the state of being made bright; enlightenment; brightening, as of the mental powers.
    • (Webster 1913)

    Quotations

    * 2008 , Kathy Clark, Stand By Your Man , page 280: *: Manny drove a few miles per hour under the speed limit, entranced by the awesome display of lightning streaking out of the clouds toward earth.

    Derived terms

    * ball lightning * Jewish lightning * greased lightning * lightning bug * lightning bolt * lightning conductor * lightning detector * lightning in a bottle * lightning rod * sheet lightning * upward lightning

    Coordinate terms

    * thunderbolt

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Extremely fast or sudden.
  • Moving at the speed of lightning.

    • Verb

    (en verb)
  • (impersonal, childish, or, nonstandard) To produce lightning.
  • * 1916 , Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Understood Betsy
    • Or if it thundered and lightninged , Aunt Frances always dropped everything she might be doing and held Elizabeth Ann tightly in her arms until it was all over.
  • * 1968 , Dan Greenburg, Chewsday: a sex novel
    • The next day, though it is not only raining but thundering and lightninging as well, antiquing is seen by three-fourths of those present as a lesser evil than free play.
  • * 1987 , Tricia Springstubb, Eunice Gottlieb and the unwhitewashed truth about life
    • "Hey!" yelled Reggie, pulling her back. "Get in here! It's lightninging . I don't want a charcoal-broiled friend!"
  • * 1988 , Carlo Collodi, Roberto Innocenti, The adventures of Pinocchio
    • I don't know, Father, but believe me, it has been a horrible night — one that I'll never forget. It thundered and lightninged , and I was very hungry.

    Usage notes

    * bolt, flash, strike are some of the words used to count lightning. * The standard, but rare, verb for "lightning occurs" is lighten, used only in the impersonal form "it lightens", or as "it’s lightening".

    electricity

    English

    (wikipedia electricity) (Etymology of electricity)

    Noun

    (en-noun)
  • The study of electrical energy; the branch of science dealing with such phenomena.
  • * 2011 , Jon Henley, The Guardian , 29 Mar 2011:
    • How does it work, though? It's based on the observation made some 200 years ago that electricity can change the shape of flames.
  • Electric power/energy as used in homes etc., supplied by power stations or generators.
  • * 2000 , James Meek, Home-made answer to generating electricity harks back to the past'', ''The Guardian :
    • Householders could one day be producing as much electricity as all the country's nuclear power stations combined, thanks to the revolutionary application of a device developed in the early 19th century.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Out of the gloom , passage=[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity . Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.}}
  • Electric charge, or particles carrying such charge
  • * 1747 , (Benjamin Franklin), letter, 28 Jul 1747:
    • Restoring the equilibrium in the bottle does not at all affect the Electricity in the man.
  • * 1837 , William Leithead, Electricity , p. 5:
    • Attraction, then, is the first phenomenon that arrests our attention, and it is one that is constantly attendant on excitation. It is therefore considered a sure indicator of the presence of electricity in an active state, and forms the basis of all its tests.
  • * 1873 , (James Clerk Maxwell), :
    • We may express all these results in a concise and consistent manner by describing an electrified body as charged'' with a certain ''quantity of electricity'' , which we may denote by ''e .
  • A feeling of excitement; a thrill.
  • (label) A property of amber and certain other nonconducting substances ("electricks") to attract lightweight material when rubbed, or the cause of this property; now understood to be an imbalance of electric charge.
  • * 1646 , (Sir Thomas Browne), Pseudodoxia Epidemica , 1st edition, p. 51:
    • The concretion of Ice will not endure a dry attrition without liquation; for if it be rubbed long with a cloth, it melteth. But Crystal will calefie unto electricity ; that is, a power to attract strawes and light bodies, and convert the needle freely placed.

    Related terms

    * alternating current (AC) * current * energy * power

    See also

    * electric * electron

    References

    * Equivalent text in Pseudodoxia Epidemica , 6th edition (1672), p. 53 * Niels H. de V. Heathcote (December 1967). " The early meaning of electricity'': Some ''Pseudodoxia Epidemica'' - I". ''Annals of Science 23 (4): pp. 261-275.