nightlight

plural nightlights · alternative night light

1. countableA small, dim light or lamp left on overnight.

   He put a small nightlight in the bathroom to find his way around in the dark.

   3 more examples

   She had brought in with her the night-light that had been burning outside her door. She blew it out.

   1925, D. H. Lawrence, chapter XVIII, in Louis L. Martz, editor, Quetzalcoatl, New York: New Directions, published 1998, page 310

   They made you give up / your nightlight / and your teddy / and your thumb.

   1974, Anne Sexton, “The Fury of Overshoes”, in The Complete Poems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, published 1981, page 372

   1988, Joseph Brodsky, "Gorbunov and Gorchakov" Canto 13 in In Urania, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 165, Your light cannot drive off the dark from me— / not any more than night-lights by the bed / drive off my dreams.

2. uncountableLight that shines at night, such as moonlight or starlight.

   […] the man held up two small objects faintly twinkling in the nightlight;

   1924, Herman Melville, chapter 12, in Billy Budd, London: Constable & Co.

   2 more examples

   The floor-cloth deadened his footsteps as he moved in that direction through the obscurity, which was broken only by the faintest reflected night-light from without.

   1895, Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure, Part Six, Chapter III

   Their made-up faces were garish in the night-light and as they walked they stared fixedly ahead, afraid to make a sideways glance in case it should be called soliciting.

   1980, William Trevor, chapter 4, in Other People's Worlds, Penguin, published 1982, page 79