Definition of "lightning"

Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go, and say unto thee, Here we are?

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Job 38:35

It was the thought of hot July and August days, when the clouds piled up like woolly mountains, and lightnings streaked the sky.

1901, E. L. Morris, The Child's Eden, page 16

"Ruu": The adults in the village all said that children like me could calm the lightning and turn the storms into timely rain.

2021 October 13, Genshin Impact, v2.2, miHoYo, iOS, Android, Windows, PS4, level/area: The Sun-Wheel and Mt. Kanna

Auster and Aquilon with winged SteedsAll ſweating, tilt about the watery heauens,With ſhiuering ſpeares enforcing thunderclaps,And from their ſhields ſtrike flames of lightening

c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, Act III, scene ii

The rain at length ceased; and the lightnings, as they played along the black parapet of clouds, that lay piled in the east, shone with less dazzling fierceness, […]

1881, Daniel Pierce Thompson, The Green Mountain Boys, page 281

Nobs, though, was lightning by comparison with the slow thinking beast and dodged his opponent's thrust with ease. Then he raced to the rear of the tremendous thing and seized it by the tail.

1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp.; republished as chapter V, in Hugo Gernsback, editor, Amazing Stories, (please specify |part=I, II, or III), New York, N.Y.: Experimenter Publishing, 1927,

The insurgents then began their lightning advance along the Euphrates in the Sunni heartland toward Baghdad.

2018, Nader Uskowi, Temperature Rising, page 69

Or if it thundered and lightninged, Aunt Frances always dropped everything she might be doing and held Elizabeth Ann tightly in her arms until it was all over.

1916, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Understood Betsy

The next day, though it is not only raining but thundering and lightninging as well, antiquing is seen by three-fourths of those present as a lesser evil than free play.

1968, Dan Greenburg, Chewsday: a sex novel

"Hey!" yelled Reggie, pulling her back. "Get in here! It's lightninging. I don't want a charcoal-broiled friend!"

1987, Tricia Springstubb, Eunice Gottlieb and the unwhitewashed truth about life

I don't know, Father, but believe me, it has been a horrible night — one that I'll never forget. It thundered and lightninged, and I was very hungry.

1988, Carlo Collodi, Roberto Innocenti, The adventures of Pinocchio