1 gently; with very little force or effort:
He kissed her lightly on the cheek. * She ran lightly up the stairs.
2 to a small degree; not much:
It began to snow lightly. * She tended to sleep lightly nowadays (= it was easy to disturb her). * I try to eat lightly (= not to eat heavy or greasy food).
3 in a way that sounds as though you are not particularly worried or interested:
'I'll be all right,' he said lightly.
4 without being seriously considered:
This is not a problem we should take lightly. * Such fears should not be dismissed lightly.
IDIOMS
get off / be let off lightly (informal) to be punished or treated in a way that is less harsh than you deserve or may have expected:
He got off lightly with a small fine. * The children were let off lightly.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for lightly is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is lightly a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, lightly is tagged as adverb.
Does lightly appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — lightly appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
