light

   1. promiscuous

   Of no moral weight but light ladies, wenches, or women were not successful dieters or those emulating Florence Nightingale but prostitutes:

    I wouldn't have thought that many of the light ladies of Calcutta had the opportunity to bestow their favours in the Japanese. (Fraser, 1992, and not differentiating them from the dark ladies)

    Light wenches will burn. Come not near her. (Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors — they were not condemned to the stake but would give you venereal disease)

   Commentators charged that throughout his papacy [Pope John XI] continued committing 'infinite abominations among light women'. (Cawthorne, 1996 — he occupied the throne of St Peter from 931 to 936)

   2. (a light) (in a request to light a cigarette) a male recognition signal

   Such a request was once a universal homosexual password:

    ... it was not granted to me to live a moment of happiness, because a sailor's face in front of me went blank when I asked him for a light. (Genet, in 1969 translation)

   3. American

   not obviously black

   The language of segregation or prejudice:

    I couldn't go in there with her. Even if I was light enough to pass, like her. (Macdonald, 1952)