Green light or greenlight?
green light is a noun meaning “A traffic light in its green state (indicating that vehicles may proceed)”; greenlight is a verb meaning “To approve; to permit to proceed”. Use green light as a noun and greenlight as a verb. green light is written as two words and greenlight as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between green light and greenlight?
| green light | greenlight | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | verb |
| Meaning | A traffic light in its green state (indicating that vehicles may proceed) Approval, or permission to proceed | informalTo approve; to permit to proceed |
| Example | The drive home was much faster than usual; somehow we managed to hit every green light | none recorded |
| Forms | none | greenlights, greenlighting, greenlighted, greenlit |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈɡɹiːnlaɪt/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: green light and greenlight in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of green light and greenlight
green light
- 1
A traffic light in its green state (indicating that vehicles may proceed)
The drive home was much faster than usual; somehow we managed to hit every green light
- 2
Alternative form of greenlight
- 3
Approval, or permission to proceed
We have a green light on the project. Work starts today
- 4
slangA go-ahead to commit a crime, specifically to carry out a hit on someone (i.e. to kill)
Yo man, I heard someone had put a green light out on you, so watch your back
greenlight
- 1
informalTo approve; to permit to proceed
- 2
slangTo approve or requisition the harming or death of; to put a hit out on
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, green light or greenlight?
green light is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; greenlight about once in every 2 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search green light vs greenlight?
“green light vs greenlight” is searched about 20 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“greenlight vs green light”, “green light or greenlight”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.