A lamp or light fixture mounted on a pole or building along a street to illuminate the road and sidewalk at night.
From 'street' (from Old English 'stræt' from Latin 'strata') and 'light' (from Old English 'leoht'). The compound word emerged in the 19th century as gas lamps were installed on city streets, combining two simple words to name a new technology.
Before electric streetlights in the 1880s, cities were genuinely dangerous at night because crime increased in darkness—the invention of streetlights actually changed human behavior and made nighttime in cities socially acceptable for the first time!
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