crosslight
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Forms: form: crosslights
Etymology: From cross + light.
Senses: examples: text: Each great party has felt itself in honor bound to justify its men and measures by elaborate argument, and so it has resulted that the light of science has been too often a crosslight, obscuring what it sought to illumine.
ref: 1880, John Torrey Morse (Jr.), Henry Cabot Lodge, Robert Percival Porter, The International Review - Volume 8, page 92:
text: Use crosslight on the coat to show the warp and woof, and bring out texture.
ref: 1942, Minicam Photography - Volume 6, Issues 1-6, page 59:
text: This positioning will create a crosslight that will leave half your subject in shadow.
ref: 1992, Richard Ferncase, Basic Lighting Worktext for Film and Video, →ISBN, page 50:
text: Such a crosslight emphasizes and defines the forms of trees, buildings, hills and valleys and produces a picture with strong contrasts of darkagainst-light.
ref: 1964 September, Jim Yarnell, “Flying Photographer”, in Flying Magazine, volume 75, number 3, page 75:
glosses: Light that comes from the side, causing shadows that can obscure objects of view or create strong contrasts.
examples: text: When the crosslight turned green, silence was much less perilous.
ref: 1972, Descant: The Texas Christian University Literary Journal:
glosses: A traffic light intended principally to allow pedestrian or other traffic from a lesser roadway to cross a busier roadway.
examples: text: Again, the crosslight is best designed to angle slightly upstage taking care not to produce shadows on backings.
ref: 1967, Jerry J. Lewis, An Approach to Lighting Design from Modern Dance, page 11:
text: Quick buffo comedy requires the clarity of the straight play, while sustained romantic anguish flourishes in atmospheric backlights and crosslight.
ref: 2013, Francis Reid, Stage Lighting Handbook, →ISBN, page 154:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
theater
glosses: Illumination directed at the performers or subject matter from opposite sides of the set.
examples: text: In building a stable for horses only, where you can have light as you wish, I would say always have crosslight, so that the rays will cross as near where the horse stands as possible.
ref: 1897, The Rural New-Yorker - Volume 56, page 186:
glosses: Light that results from multiple sources and different directions.
examples: text: There is sometimes an advantage, however, in getting a double light, or a crosslight, on a subject; or, in other words, in letting two men explain the same point.
ref: 1898, The Bee Keepers' Review - Volumes 11-12, page 91:
text: For my own part, I want to stand in the crosslight, to stand where all we can grasp of the world around us, scientifically, sociologically, culturally, can still be seen and spoken of with wonder and compassion.
ref: 1996, Daniel W. Hardy, David Ford, Dennis L. Stamps, Essentials of Christian community: essays for Daniel W. Hardy, page 51:
glosses: Multiple perspectives or points of view.
examples: text: The incident of the palm was interesting in throwing an illuminative crosslight on the gentler human side of a man who had generally been rated as without either gentleness or humanity.
ref: 1921, Lewis Ransome Freeman, Hell's Hatches, page 183:
text: In one crosslight all this bears a strong resemblance to Animal Farm, where, though all animals were equal, some were more equal than others.
ref: 1969, J.C. Furnas, The Americans: A Social History of the United States 1587-1914:
glosses: One of a number of differing points of view.