Definition of "rushlight" (historical) A type of inexpensive candle formed by soaking the dried pith of the rush plant in fat or grease , which emits light for a relatively short period of time . quotations
Quotations The rushlight was her friend , and aided her to pass the long , long hours before midnight , for it was enclosed within its accustomed tin cage ; […]
1842, [Katherine] Thomson, chapter XI, in Widows and Widowers. A Romance of Real Life., volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], pages 198–199
After supper Sir Pitt Crawley began to smoke his pipe ; and when it became quite dark , he lighted the rushlight in the tin candlestick , and producing from an interminable pocket a huge mass of papers , began reading them , and putting them in order .
1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, “Crawley of Queen’s Crawley”, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, page 61