lamp

English lamp comes from Middle English laumpe, from Old French lampe, from Latin lampas ("torch, lamp, light"), from Ancient Greek λαμπάς (lampás, "torch, lamp, beacon, light, meteor"), itself from the verb λάμπω (lámpō, "to shine"). Beneath all of this lies the Proto-Indo-European root *leh₂p-, meaning "to shine."

The Greek source word lampás covered a wide range of shining things — torches, beacons, lights, even meteors — before narrowing, through Latin and French, into the more specific household object English speakers now call a lamp. In English, it also pushed out the native Old English word lēohtfæt, literally "light-vat."

Lamp is cognate with Lithuanian lópė ("light") and Welsh llachar ("bright"), both tracing back to that same PIE root for shining.