jack-o'-lantern

Meanings

1. 1nouncountable

   A hollow pumpkin with a face cut into it, usually put outside at Halloween and sometimes lit from within.

   Grammar: Countable: one jack-o'-lantern, two jack-o'-lanterns.

   Patterns

   • carve a jack-o'-lantern
   • light a jack-o'-lantern

   The children carved a jack-o'-lantern and set it on the porch.

   We put a candle inside the jack-o'-lantern so it glowed after dark.

   Every October, shops sell pumpkins for making jack-o'-lanterns.

2. 2nouncountableold-fashionedrare

   A small light in a box that people once carried at night, or a moving light seen over wet ground.

   Grammar: Countable and old-fashioned; the modern Halloween use is far more common.

   In old stories, travelers followed a jack-o'-lantern across the marsh.

   The word once meant a lantern made from a turnip with a candle inside.

Word forms

Common combinations

carve a jack-o'-lantern

It takes about an hour to carve a jack-o'-lantern.

a glowing jack-o'-lantern

A glowing jack-o'-lantern sat on every doorstep.

pumpkin for a jack-o'-lantern

Choose a big, firm pumpkin for a jack-o'-lantern.

light a jack-o'-lantern

We light the jack-o'-lantern when trick-or-treaters arrive.

Halloween jack-o'-lantern

The yard was full of Halloween jack-o'-lanterns.

Synonyms and how they differ

pumpkin lantern

A plain descriptive term; it names the object but is less common than jack-o'-lantern.

Word family

lantern noun

A light inside a protective case, the second part of the compound.

Commonly confused: jack-o'-lantern or pumpkin?

Practice

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Write a sentence using “jack-o'-lantern”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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