An electric light is a device that produces visible light from electric current. It is the most common form of artificial lighting and is essential to modern society,[1] providing interior lighting for buildings and exterior light for evening and nighttime activities. In technical usage, a replaceable component that produces light from electricity is called a lamp.[2] Lamps are commonly called light bulbs; for example, the incandescent light bulb.[3] Lamps usually have a base made of ceramic, metal, glass, or plastic, which secures the lamp in the socket of a light fixture. The electrical connection to the socket may be made with a screw-thread base, two metal pins, two metal caps or a bayonet cap.

The three main categories of electric lights are incandescent lamps, which produce light by a filament heated white-hot by electric current, gas-discharge lamps, which produce light by means of an electric arc through a gas, and LED lamps, which produce light by a flow of electrons across a band gap in a semiconductor.