deadlight

See also: dead-light

English

Alternative forms

• dead-light, dead light

Etymology

From dead +‎ light.

Noun

deadlight (plural deadlights)

1. (nautical) A strong (often wooden) shutter fitted over a porthole, that can be closed in bad weather to keep water out and discourage the glass windows from breaking.
2. (nautical) A deck prism, a device to allow light into the cabin of boat through the deck.
3. (figurative, archaic) An eye.
   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:

     Here you comes and tells me of it plain; and here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed deadlights!

4. (figurative, archaic) An eyelid.
   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he'd never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it.

5. (architecture) Synonym of deadlite