Glossary
Lighting Glossary
Beam angle, grazing, kelvin, lumen, voltage drop and more: the words lighting designers use, explained in plain English. Search or scroll.
- Beam angle
- How wide the cone of light from a fixture spreads, in degrees.
- Bloom
- The soft halo of light around a bright source.
- CCT
- Correlated color temperature, the warmth or coolness of white light, in kelvin.
- Color rendering
- How faithfully a light shows the true colors of what it hits.
- Cross lighting
- Lighting a subject from two sides to reduce harsh shadows.
- Dimmer
- A control that changes how bright a light is.
- Downlighting
- Light aimed down from above, such as from a soffit or a tree.
- Driver
- The electronic part that gives an LED the power it needs.
- Fixture
- The complete light, including its housing, lens and LED.
- Flood
- A wide beam that covers a large area softly.
- Gauge
- The thickness of a cable, where a lower number means a thicker wire.
- Glare
- Light that hits the eye directly and makes seeing harder.
- Grazing
- Placing a fixture close to a surface so light rakes across its texture.
- Hue
- The color itself, such as red, green or blue, apart from brightness.
- Kelvin
- The unit for color temperature. Lower is warmer, higher is cooler.
- Low voltage
- Lighting that runs at a safe 12 volts rather than household power.
- Lumen
- A measure of how much light a fixture gives off.
- Moonlighting
- Soft light placed high in a tree so it filters down like moonlight.
- Path light
- A low fixture that lights a walk with a pool of light.
- Scene
- A saved lighting look that can be recalled with one tap.
- Shield
- A part that blocks light from reaching the eye or neighboring property.
- Silhouetting
- Lighting a wall behind an object so the object shows as a dark shape.
- Spot
- A narrow beam that picks out one feature.
- Transformer
- A box that reduces household power to the low voltage the lights use.
- Uplighting
- Light aimed up from the ground, such as on a tree or a wall.
- Voltage drop
- The loss of voltage along a long cable run, which makes far fixtures dim.
- Wall washing
- Spreading soft light evenly over a wall.
- Watt
- A measure of how much power a light uses.
- Wet location
- A place where a fixture is exposed to rain, spray or standing water.
- Zone
- A group of fixtures controlled together.
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