light-years

plural of light-year
as in worlds
a huge physical or conceptual distance my sister and I are close in age, but personality-wise, there are light-years between us

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of light-years The feature, nicknamed the Cat's Tail, extends out from the debris disk known as Beta Pictoris which is located in a planetary system located 63 light-years away. — Robert Lea, Space.com, 3 Nov. 2026 Also, these happen, on average, billions of light-years from us, so the energy is dissipated to far less than that of the beat of a bat’s wing on Earth. — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 30 Oct. 2026 In 2024, a separate team used these tools to create a continuous three-dimensional map of the density of the ISM’s dust inside a sphere more than 4,000 light-years wide around our sun. — Perri Thaler, Quanta Magazine, 30 Oct. 2026 According to Fuller, neutrinos can even travel through light-years of lead without stopping, depending on their energy. — Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 23 Oct. 2026 Ellen is also the principal of Sonny’s high school, and a warm-but-firm educator naturally evokes Tami Taylor, even if Oregon is thousands of miles and metaphorical light-years away from West Texas. — Alison Herman, Variety, 20 Oct. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for light-years
Noun
  • The Cat and the kids dive into their cardboard boxes to find the misplaced Go-Backer and discover vast, amazing worlds informed by their interests and imaginations.
    — Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 6 Nov. 2026
  • But Foley was ready for a change and said the move reflects a desire to follow his curiosity and explore new ways of bringing creative and commercial worlds together.
    — Jean E. Palmieri, Footwear News, 5 Nov. 2026
Noun
  • The team is now collaborating with NASA to investigate whether the approach could help analyse light from distant galaxies.
    — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 4 Nov. 2026
  • However, as the universe cooled and expanded, these sites became the building blocks of far less chaotic galaxies.
    — Robert Lea, Space.com, 3 Nov. 2026

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Cite this Entry

“Light-years.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/light-years. Accessed 11 Nov. 2026.

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