shimmer
/ˈʃɪm.ɚ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.98 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
Of a mass of bees: to move their abdomens in a coordinated manner so as to produce a shimmering wave effect, thought to deter predators.
noun
A measure of the irregularities in the loudness of a particular pitch over time.
noun
A thin electronic device that is fit inside a card reader, such as on automated teller machines (ATMs), or point-of-sale terminals (POS's), that acts as an intermediate interface between the chip on a chip-and-pin technology card and the chip reader of the machine, to allow one to clone the chip.
Example Sentences
- "1581, John Studley (translator), Medea, Act 4, in Seneca his Tenne Tragedies, London: Thomas Marsh, p. 135, With dusky shimmering wanny globe, her lampe doth pale appeare"
- "The shimmering glimpses of a stream"
- "I looked then and saw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered."
- "Pale tourists, tired but excited, emerge like apparitions from the heat haze that shimmers over the tarmac."
- "I shut the closet, to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour—nine o’clock—gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment."
- "The hives […] were scattered towards the back of the clearing, like small mounds of clean vegetable refuse. Over each mound there hung a dusty golden shimmer of bees."
Etymology
From Middle English schimeren, from Old English sċymrian, sċimrian, sċimerian, from Proto-Germanic *skimarōną. Cognate with Dutch schemeren, German schimmern.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: schimeren, sċymrian, *skimarōną
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈʃɪm.ɚ/
- British English: /ˈʃɪm.ə(ɹ)/