What is the plural of the word 'lightning'?

Lightning.

Kind of like, “Look at all those moose!”

It would be still Lightning i would believe – just like “Look, there is one sheep – Look, there are many sheep” – Is just one of those words they has no plural difference (i may well be shown to be wrong though lol)

Well “lightning” isn’t a unit, it’s the phenomenon. You wouldn’t say “Look at all those winds!” or “Look at all those rains!” so the same goes. “Look at all that lightning!”

Oh wait…you don’t mean plural, you mean the gerund, the parallel of “It’s raining,” right?

There’s no real word, I don’t think, although I also use “it’s lightninging” informally. I think you’d just say, “There’s lightening.”

my macbook’s dictionary says – poetic/literary a flash or discharge of this kind : the sky was a mass of black cloud out of which lightnings flashed.

But I’m not sure how much trust I should put in it. My first instinct is to say the plural of lightning is lightning.

Wiktionary calls “lightnings” an archaic plural form of lightning.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lightnings

It also says that “lightening” is both countable and uncountable (ie, it both has a plural form and doesn’t. How philosophical)

Wiki says the following, but not I can’t find it in any dictionary:
> Lightning (countable and uncountable; plural lightnings)
. . The flash of light caused by the discharge of atmospheric electrical charge.
. . The discharge of atmospheric electrical charge itself.

But what I think you mean is a lightening strike or strikes (the forks that shoot to the ground). And I would say:
> ‘Look there is a thunderstorm!’
> ‘Look there is lightening over there!’.
> ‘Look it is striking lightning’.

Lightnin’ ;) I just call it a faster game of golf…

The answer to your question is lightning. (Not lightninging or lightening.) As in, “Sometimes, when it rains, it thunders and lightnings.” Also acceptable, e.g., is “It lightninged last night.”

@sliceswiththings

Lightning as the verb is the real word.

Of course you can say “those winds” or “those rains”. The four winds, the winds of fortune, the winds of change, the rains of Ranchipur, the rains of Castamere. Likewise you can pluralize lightning as lightnings, if you wish. Archaic or not, it still makes sense and is still acceptable.

Plural – Lightnins (scouse)

Applications:
1 – Fuck’n’ell lar, look at all dem der lightnins der!........
2 – Dem lightnins arn’arf makin a racket wit all dat der tunder!....

Look at all that lightning.
Look at all that water.
Look at all that grass.
Look at all that mud.
Look at all that sand.
Look at all that rain.
Look at all that food.
Look at all that gold.
Look at all that space.

Uncountable nouns, or nouns used in their uncountable sense, are used in the singular.

Lightning McQueen’s. ?

actually the example in your question has nothing to do with being plural. your question is more about making the word “lightning” a verb. take the word “rain”. from your example, the sentence the sentence would say, “Look, it is raining”.

now, if you wanted to form a sentence that uses a plural form of “lightning”, you would say, “Look at all of the lightning” or “look at the lightning” or “look at those lightning strikes (or bolts)”. As mentioned previously, the word “lightning” does not really refer to a bolt of lightning or lightning strike singularly.

Maybe you have a different meaning in mind and we have not understood you correctly. You might have thrown us off by referring to the plural. Do you mean “getting lighter”—as in increasing light (at dawn) or having the color of something change? If so, you are talking about a form of the verb “to lighten.” You might say “It is lightening earlier now that we are past December 21st” or “She is lightening her hair.”

In its root this is related to the word we use for the bolts of light (= lightning) in a thunderstorm, but we treat the word differently and spell it differently.

“Plural” means “more than one.” I don’t see how the plural comes into your question.

@Jeruba

Yes, but of course there is a countable sense of lightning, too. As there is for water, grass, mud, sand, rain, food, gold, and space.

I don’t think her question actually concerns plurality, though, so it doesn’t really matter. I assume she means the verbal v. nominal forms of lightning.

Perhaps she can help us out.

The OED has “lightning” as a verb:

1903 Westm. Gaz. 16 Nov. 8/2 The two metal balls..thundered and lightninged as they delivered the message.

1926 H. CAINE in Strand Mag. Jan. 20/1 Mr. Gladstone leapt to his feet, whereupon the air of the House thundered and lightninged for a short ten minutes.

1935 in Z. N. Hurston Mules & Men (1970) I. i. 27 You know, when it lightnings, de angels is peepin’ in de lookin’ glass.

So the answer clearly is, “Look, it’s lightninging.”

Or just “Look, it’s lightening” – “lighten” meaning “to flash lightning”.

Lotsa.