Footlight

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A row of lamps set along the front edge of a stage floor ; the theatre world or the career of performing on stage
2. Stage lights fixed at the front of the platform below the audience's view ; the acting profession and the world of live theatre
3. Lamps placed at the lip of a stage to illuminate performers ; by extension, the life and business of acting in the theatre

Etymology: Footlights are the row of lamps set along the front edge of a theatre stage, and the name is literal: they sit at foot level, at the stage's lower edge, and throw their light upward onto the performers. The word is a plain compound of "foot" and "light," with no hidden history behind it. Its first sense was simply the lamps themselves, placed where the stage meets the audience. Because the lamps stood for the stage as a whole, the word came to stand for the theatre's world more broadly. Actors speak of "the footlights" when they mean the profession of performing, or the moment of appearing before an audience, as in phrases about being drawn into the footlights or leaving them behind. The lights did the same job for a century of playhouses that they had from the start: making the performer visible against the darkened house.

Synonyms: footlamp, limelight