different between highlight vs highlit

English

Alternative forms

• hilite (informal)

Etymology

From high +? light.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ha?.?la?t/
• Homophone: hilite
• Rhymes: -a?t

Noun

highlight (plural highlights)

1. An area or a spot in a drawing, painting, or photograph that is strongly illuminated.

   Antonym: lowlight

   • 1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Library of America, 1985, p.114:

     The image blurred into the highlight, like something familiar seen beneath disturbed though clear water; he looked at the familiar image with a kind of quiet horror and despair, at a face suddenly older in sin than he would ever be, a face more blurred than sweet, at eyes more secret than soft.

2. An especially significant or interesting detail or event or period of time.

   Meeting my future wife was the highlight of my trip to Spain.

   We'll be broadcasting the news highlights every half an hour.

3. (cosmetics) A strand or spot of hair dyed a different color than the rest.

   Hyponym: lowlight

Translations

Verb

highlight (third-person singular simple present highlights, present participle highlighting, simple past and past participle highlighted or (nonstandard) highlit)

1. (transitive) To make prominent; emphasize.
2. (transitive) To be a highlight of.
3. (transitive) To mark (important passages of text), e.g. with a fluorescent marker pen or in a wordprocessor, as a means of memory retention or for later reference.
4. (transitive) To dye (part of the hair) a different color than the rest.
5. (transitive, Internet) To seek the attention of (a user) on IRC by mentioning their name in a message, causing that message to appear highlighted on their screen.
   • 2006, "Frans Pop", Re: Bug#378404: installation guide: one more additional proposal (on newsgroup linux.debian.maint.boot)

     You could have asked: is there a reason this easy patch was not applied, either on IRC or private mail by me. You did write a comment on IRC and I did see it. Problem is that you did not highlight me _and_ you did not wait for an answer.

   • 2013, "Jens Rehsack", Re: AnyData open API (on newsgroup perl.dbi.dev)

     You must be somewhere completely different. I’ve looked for several days and don’t see you. But: I’m kind of blind from time to time - please feel free to highlight me ([Sno]) or probably (H. Merijn Brand) Tux or vanHoesel (Theo van Hoesel).

Translations

English

Verb

highlit

1. (uncommon) simple past tense and past participle of highlight; highlighted.
   • 1967, Alexander C. Soper, "A pictorial biography of Prince Shotoku", The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin

     The potential precariousness of the alliance is highlit by the catastrophe of its abrupt ending in the next generation, after the deaths of the two principals.

   • 1998, Charles Townshend, "The meaning of Irish freedom constitutionalism in the Free State", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

     I want to focus on an aspect highlit by Denis Donoghue when he reviewed it in the London Review of Books.

Usage notes

• Used with less than three percent of the frequency of "highlighted" in books.
• Sometimes regarded as a misconstruction
• Used as an example of a misconstruction in books on language learning.