̈ɪlaɪt adjective Often written lite in
brand names (Lifestyle
and Leisure) Of foods and drinks: containing
few calories;
especially, low in
fat or
cholesterol.
Etymology: A specialization of
sense arising
almost entirely from the use of the
word in advertising and brand names; the
current use
when applied to
food and
drink deliberately combines elements of a
number of well-established senses. On the
one hand, it is the food
that is
being described as light (in the
same sense as one might
speak of a light meal, or
think of
lager as light compared
with bitter); on the
other, it is the
effect on the
consumer that is at
issue (implying that light foods and drinks will
not make you fat and heavy). Light
has been used of drinks (especially beer), as in light
ale, to mean 'not strong'
since the
late nineteenth
century (and in
this sense is the
opposite of stout), but in the 1980s this
development moved one
step further. The
spelling lite in brand names reflects the same process as the one
which produced nite from
night.
History and
Usage: This is a usage which has
become especially
common as a
result of the prevailing
fashion in the eighties
for a low-fat,
high-fibre diet and the
consequent marketing of foodstuffs, drinks, and prepared meals specifically to
take advantage of this. The
first beer to
carry the brand
name Lite
was launched in the late sixties by Meister Brau in the
US; this
became Miller Lite in the seventies and started to become
very popular in the second
half of that
decade.
Now, the word light (or lite) is often
part of the name of a
product,
following a
proper noun (as in the
trade marks
Meadow Lea Lite and Vitaquell Light margarines, Budweiser Lite beer, etc.)--a
departure from the
normal pattern of usage in
English,
where adjectives
would normally precede the nouns
they qualify, but
consistent with a
trend in the naming of products. In the US the word has
also been applied to other consumables,
such as cigarettes with a low
tar content.
Its idea of
what makes a light beer light is that it contains 100 calories or
less in a 12-oz
serving. Marketing
Week 29 Aug. 1986, p. 16
Polyunsaturated Meadow Lea Lite and
Mrs McGregors Lite are reduced fat spreads with
only half the fat and half the kilojoules of
regular margarine and
butter. Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 28
June 1989, p. 29
