NORTHERN LIGHTS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does northern lights mean? 

• NORTHERN LIGHTS (noun)
  The noun NORTHERN LIGHTS has 1 sense:

1. the aurora of the northern hemisphere

  Familiarity information: NORTHERN LIGHTS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• NORTHERN LIGHTS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The aurora of the northern hemisphere

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Synonyms:

aurora borealis; northern lights

Hypernyms ("northern lights" is a kind of...):

aurora (an atmospheric phenomenon consisting of bands of light caused by charged solar particles following the earth's magnetic lines of force)

 Context examples 

The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along the horizon.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Sometimes it is clear, and at midday the sun looks at us for a moment over the hills to the south. The northern lights flame in the sky, and the sun-dogs dance, and the air is filled with frost-dust.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

How would you paint this which I saw, a picture without beginning, the ending of which I do not understand, a piece of life with the northern lights for a candle and Alaska for a frame.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)