Library / English Dictionary

GLITTER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

The quality of shining with a bright reflected light

Synonyms:

glisten; glister; glitter; scintillation; sparkle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("glitter" is a kind of...):

brightness (the location of a visual perception along a continuum from black to white)

Derivation:

glitter (be shiny, as if wet)

glittery (having brief brilliant points or flashes of light)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The occurrence of a small flash or spark

Synonyms:

coruscation; glitter; sparkle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("glitter" is a kind of...):

flash (a sudden intense burst of radiant energy)

Derivation:

glittery (having brief brilliant points or flashes of light)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Be shiny, as if wet

Example:

His eyes were glistening

Synonyms:

gleam; glint; glisten; glitter; shine

Classified under:

Verbs of seeing, hearing, feeling

Hypernyms (to "glitter" is one way to...):

appear; look; seem (give a certain impression or have a certain outward aspect)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "glitter"):

spangle (glitter as if covered with spangles)

shimmer (give off a shimmering reflection, as of silk)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sentence examples:

Lights glitter on the horizon

The horizon is glittering with lights

Derivation:

glitter (the quality of shining with a bright reflected light)

Credits

 Context examples: 

The bag is opened, and several quarts of tin money shower down upon the stage till it is quite glorified with the glitter.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek! and how strangely your eyes glitter!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

His fat, red face wreathed itself in smiles and his small eyes glittered as he greeted my companion.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They walked over a pavement of the same green marble, and where the blocks were joined together were rows of emeralds, set closely, and glittering in the brightness of the sun.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

And Buck was truly a red-eyed devil, as he drew himself together for the spring, hair bristling, mouth foaming, a mad glitter in his blood-shot eyes.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

But her affectionate nature was so happy in what I now said to her with my whole heart, that her face became a laughing one before her glittering eyes were dry.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Martin and Professor Caldwell had got together in a conspicuous corner, and though Martin no longer wove the air with his hands, to Ruth's critical eye he permitted his own eyes to flash and glitter too frequently, talked too rapidly and warmly, grew too intense, and allowed his aroused blood to redden his cheeks too much.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

It’s an aspect of hope and happiness, and it glitters.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The next morning when he awoke he lifted up his pillow, and there lay the piece of gold glittering underneath; the same happened next day, and indeed every day when he arose.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)