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Glite Dictionary
💭 A faint idea ✨ To shine faintly ✨ A faint light
to glimmer

to glimmer

12 3.9
To shine with a weak, unsteady light
  • verb
  • /ˈɡlɪmər/
translation icon : parpadear
  • She watched the candle flame glimmer in the drafty room.
  • eyes glimmered
  • light glimmered
  • sunlight glimmered

Yangtze The moon glimmers in the brown channel.

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Examples

  • At night, TV sets glimmered eerily through open windows in small villages that whirred by.

    Academic text (1999)

  • His eyes are drawn to something glimmering on the floor across the room.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • Boy, just seeing the sun kind of glimmer across the tops of them, they really do look pretty.

  • Sit back and watch them glimmer, they're starting to grow.

    Around the Fire (1998)

  • I love how the ring just glimmers.

    Almost Christmas (2016)

  • Another light, closer to the ground, glimmered with a warm, orange glow.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • A few tears had frozen on her lower lashes, glimmering like crystals.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • In many places, light streamed and glimmered through an intricate lace work of gaps in the walls.

  • Beneath its canopy, everything glimmered faintly with the magic that emanated from the walls.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • The sun's rim touched the hills; its glimmering disk sank and hid behind the darkening heights.

    Fiction book (1990)

Synonyms

to shine
vsto glimmer
428 1.0

To send out or reflect light and look bright

is specifically a faint, unsteady kind of light not broadly bright
to glow
vsto glimmer
161 1.2

To shine with a steady soft light

is unsteady and faint rather than steady continuous light
to gleam
vsto glimmer
70 1.9

To shine softly, often on a smooth or wet surface

is dimmer and less bright, focusing on unsteady light
to flicker
vsto glimmer
60 3.6

Move or shine in quick unsteady ways

is slower and more faint rather than rapid and jerky
to shimmer
vsto glimmer
51 4.3

To shine with a soft, slightly moving light

is fainter and more unsteady than a soft steady shine
to glisten
vsto glimmer
49 4.1

Shine with a soft light, like when wet or polished

is a faint, unsteady shine rather than a reflected wet gloss
to glint
vsto glimmer
19 3.9

To shine briefly with a small flash as light bounces off something

is a faint, longer unsteady shine rather than a single flash
to glister
vsto glimmer
  • Archaic
1 8.8

To shine with small bright flashes

is weaker and more unsteady rather than sparkling and bright
to flimmer
vsto glimmer
  • UK
9.1

To move or shine in a small unsteady way

is a faint, unsteady shine rather than a steady glow
twinkling
vsto glimmer
3.3

Shining with small bright flashes of light

is a faint unsteady light rather than a clearly sparkling one

Antonyms

to darken
63 3.3

Make or become less bright, for example a room

to dim
12 2.4

To become less bright or make a light weaker

How Bright

to flash
89 1.0
to sparkle
26 1.0
glint
20 2.9
to glow
161 1.2
to glimmer
12 3.9

Surface Forms

glimmer infinitive
glimmered past
glimmered past participle
glimmering present participle
glimmers third person singular

Etymology

The verb glimmer comes from the same old root glim meaning 'a faint light', so to glimmer is to 'shine' weakly or unsteadily. That's why we say a candle, a star, or even hope 'glimmers' when it gives only a little light.