the.com/floodlight
the patient sun you bolt to a wall when night gets ambitious
means A high-powered lamp that throws broad, even illumination over a large area, used for sports fields, stages, buildings, and security.
from A transparent compound of "flood" + "light" — the image is of light pouring out in a wide wash rather than a narrow beam. "Flood" comes from Old English "flōd," the same word for an overflowing of water, related to "flow." The lighting sense arose with the rise of powerful electric lamps, when engineers borrowed the watery metaphor of "flooding" a surface — a late-19th- or early-20th-century technical coinage that has stayed put ever since.
- origin
- Early ones used carbon arcs hissing like furious insects
- night games
- Permanently rescheduled sports from afternoon to prime time
- lumens
- Stadium rigs can outshine a thousand household bulbs
- security
- Motion-triggered beams startle burglars and innocent raccoons alike
- light pollution
- They erase stars for whole cities at once
wembley stadium floodlights — installed 1953, first major british venue with electric lights for night matches
sydney cricket ground lights — 1981 installation enabled first day-night test cricket match in australia
eden gardens kolkata floods — 1987 floodlights installed, transformed night cricket in india