glimpse
/ˈɡlɪm(p)s/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.81 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
1
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
Chiefly followed by at or upon: to look at briefly and incompletely; to glance.
Intransitive verb
verb
To appear or start to appear, especially faintly or unclearly; to dawn.
Archaic; Intransitive verb
noun
Chiefly followed by of: a brief and incomplete look.
Example Sentences
- "Morning!—the Vestal Mother of the Sun / Seem'st thou to be, since from thy bosom born, / (Thou that first glimpsest—like a white-stoled nun!—) / He springeth forth—Oh! thou triumphal Morn!— / His race of glory and of joy to run; […]"
- "Those wild hills are surely the outpost of a frightful cosmic race—as I doubt all the less since reading that a new ninth planet has been glimpsed beyond Neptune, just as those influences had said it would be glimpsed."
- "The illumined portholes that Eveline [in Eveline (1904) by James Joyce] glimpses mean that the night is drawing in, that the ship will be sailing into the dark. 'Illumined' also carries its own gothic charge, and what she glimpses is not therefore a passenger ship but a ship of death, more foreboding than inviting."
- "I have only begun to glimpse the magnitude of the problem."
- "What memories? / The pure love thoughts and who may know / Thou glimpsest from the long ago?"
- "I seem to glimpse something of this familiar weakness in Mr. [Gilbert] White."
Etymology
The verb is derived from earlier glimse (obsolete), from Middle English glimsen (“to dazzle; to glisten; to glance with the eyes”), possibly from Old English *glimsian, from Proto-West Germanic *glimmisōjan, from Proto-Germanic *glimō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to shine”). Doublet of glimmer. The noun is derived from the verb. Cognates Dutch glimp (“glimpse”, noun) Middle Dutch glinsen (modern Dutch glinsteren (“to glint, glitter, shimmer, sparkle; to glance”), glimmen (“to gleam, shine”)) Middle High German glimsen (“to glow, smoulder”), glinsen (“to glimmer, shine”) Middle Low German glinsen, glintzen, glinzen (“to shimmer, shine”)
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: *ǵʰley-, glimsen, *glimsian, *glimmisōjan, *glimō
Usage
Inflected Forms
glimpses (present, singular)
glimpsing (participle, present)
glimpsed (participle, past)
glimpsed (past)
no-table-tags (table tags)
glossary (inflection template)
glimpsed (first person, past)
glimpsest (archaic, present)
glimpsed (past, second person)
glimpsedst (archaic, past)
glimpseth (archaic, present)
glimpsed (past, singular)