brights
- 1The high-intensity setting of a vehicle's headlights, casting light farther down the road.
She clicked on her brights once the streetlights disappeared.
He forgot to dim his brights and blinded the oncoming car.
Note
American drivers' word for high beams, almost always used with a possessive: your brights, my brights. The verbs around it describe working a switch: turn on, flash, drop, dim. Morton J. Schultz, writing in Popular Mechanics in 1963, already advises drivers to drop them as soon as approaching lights appear. High beams is the neutral equivalent outside casual American speech.
- 2Bold, vivid colors; also clothing, cosmetics, and similar items made in strong colors.
The spring collection leaned heavily on brights and bold prints.
She offset the neutral suit with a scarf in cheerful brights.
Note
An adjective turned into a noun that lives only in the plural: bright plus an -s that never had a singular behind it. Fashion and beauty writing use it as a category word, often set against neutrals, and it takes a plural verb: brights are back this season. Keep it distinct from the plain plural of bright, where each item is a separate, countable thing.
- 3Plural of bright.
This season's collection pairs neutral basics with a few bold brights.
Sort the brights from the darks before you start the washing machine.
Note
The ordinary, regular plural, and the one with a real singular beside it: a bright, two brights. It counts things the noun bright names one at a time. These include a painter's flat, tapering brush, a person with a naturalistic worldview, or a vividly colored or lustrous item for sale. The plural-only senses on this page have no such singular.
Less common meaning
- 4Household items made of shiny metal, such as cutlery, ornaments, and serving dishes.
Every Friday the housekeeper set about polishing the brights.
The butler arranged the brights along the dining-room sideboard.
Similarsilver, silverware, brassware
Note
A dated household word that grouped metal goods by their shine rather than their use, so cutlery, ornaments and plate all counted together. Like the vivid-colors meaning, it is plural-only and takes a plural verb. Today it reads as period color, suited to historical fiction or a remembered kitchen. In a modern setting, silverware or metalware will be understood more readily.
brights is a form of bright
bright, noun: Usually in the plural: strong, vivid colors, or clothes, cosmetics and other goods in such colors. Full entry
- Forms
- brightbrights plural
- Spelling
- bright → brights: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /s/.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from the adjective "bright" combined with the suffix "-s", which creates plural-only nouns.