lamplighter
/ˈlæmpˌlaɪ.tə(ɹ)/
lamplighter means A person employed to light streetlights at dusk and snuff them at dawn. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 87 out of 100.
lamplighter is pronounced /ˈlæmpˌlaɪ.tə(ɹ)/.
Why “lamplighter” is a great word
A person employed to light and extinguish streetlamps, especially gas or oil lamps, at dusk and dawn. From lamp (a device for giving light) + lighter (one who lights). First recorded in 1740–50. Unlike the folkloric 'leerie,' which evokes a specific, almost mythic figure from Scottish lanes, or the vigilant 'watchman' patrolling for threat, the lamplighter denotes the anonymous functionary of a municipal system. It is the rhythmic scrape and click of the pole against the iron latch, the sudden bloom of a warm, sulfurous globe in the gathering blue, and the diminishing procession of these isolated pools of light receding down a wet, empty street—a solitary, clockwork ritual that briefly holds the vast, indifferent dark at bay.
Etymology
From lamp + lighter.
noun
- A person employed to light streetlights at dusk and snuff them at dawn.“1,000 crossing-sweepers; another thousand chimney-sweeps, and the same number of turncocks and lamp-lighters;”
- Any device or contrivance for lighting lamps, such as a length of paper to be set alight at one end.“[…] and finally, laughing and all tired out, they stopped to rest and to think of some other game. They played “Buz” till they were rested, and then “Genteel Lady,” where every time a little girl made a mistake she had to have a lamplighter stuck in her hair.”
- A kind of tall bicycle.