sheet lightning

plural sheet lightnings

1. uncountableusuallyA broad flash of lightning, with no visible bolt, due to reflection.

   K'iche' diviners believe that they have a kind of soul in their blood in the form of sheet lightning.

   2014, Karen Bassie-Sweet, Maya Sacred Geography and the Creator Deities, page 95

   4 more examples

   In most very warm days in summer the thermometer stands above 70 degrees on the scale of Fahrenheit, about the centre of the county; in the summer of 1811, it stood repeatedly above 80°; and on the 25th of May, 1807, during the time when the sheet lightning of tropical regions appeared, about three in the afternoon, it stood at 92° in the shade within three miles of Moffat!

   1812, General view of the agriculture, state of property, and improvements in the county of Dumfries

   It probably belongs to the class we are accustomed to call sheet lightnings, for these are by far the most frequent in an ordinary storm.

   1859 October 28, “Marvels of Thunder-Storms”, in The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, page 216

   He was silent for a long time, redreaming the dreams that he had dreamed eight years ago, but through them all ran, as sheet-lightning through golden cloud, the light of Mrs. Hauksbee's violet eyes.

   1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 36

   The occurrence of sheet lightning in a particular district did not necessarily involve that a thunderstorm was experienced there, for it frequently happened that the storm was a long way off.

   1890 January 28, William Marriott, “Second report of the thunderstorm committee”, in Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, volume 16, number 73