searchlight

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

At night, crews trained a searchlight across dark waters infested with so-called growlers—low-floating chunks of ice the size of trucks that can puncture ships.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 12, 2025

The task is a bit like discerning a field of fireflies around a central, massive searchlight.

From Science Daily • May 6, 2024

Using sound like a searchlight, they patrol the chilly depths.

From Seattle Times • Jul. 19, 2023

Between 2003 and 2020, scientists from the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing caught almost three million migrating insects from high-altitude searchlight traps on Beihuang Island off the coast of northeast China.

From Salon • Mar. 1, 2023

The searchlight shone directly at them for seconds that felt like minutes, but then it swung away and the engine noise changed as the steersman opened the throttle and moved off along the flood.

From "The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage" by Philip Pullman