LIGHT YEAR • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Light year

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noun

Light year, Light-year n. (Astron.)

The distance over which light can travel in a year's time in a vacuum, 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers); used as a unit in expressing stellar distances. It is more than 63,000 times as great as the distance from the earth to the sun. The star nearest to the earth's sun is about 4 light years distant.

A very large difference; used figuratively to express great differences (of distance, quality, time) in comparisons. "Although having the same rank and salary, they were light-years apart in their ability to perform their jobs."

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Etymology of 'Light year'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Light year" Quotes from Famous Books

... concentration of features is more an expression of despair than grief. And it was the grief that this girl inspired that prevented me from mourning my mother as I should like to have mourned her, as she was worthy of being mourned, for she was a good woman, her virtues shone with more admirable light year after year; and had I lived with her, had I been with her during the last years of her life, her death would have come upon me with a sense of personal loss; I should have mourned her the day she died ...

— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore

... system. It's stationed a half light-year away, where it has a legal right to be. Nothing to worry about as such. It's just a heavy armed frigate, which is the limit Tranest is allowed to build. Since it's Lyad's private boat, I imagine it's been souped up with everything they could throw in. Anyway, the fact that she sent ...

— Legacy • James H Schmitz

Words linked to "Light year" : light hour, astronomy unit, light second