gleam
UK /ɡliːm/ · US /ɡlim/ noun, verb
Forms gleams gleaming gleamed gleamest gleamedst gleameth
- noun (countable) An appearance of light, especially one which is indistinct or small, or short-lived.
- noun An indistinct sign of something; a glimpse or hint. “The rescue workers preserved a gleam of optimism that the trapped miners might still survive.”
- noun A bright, but intermittent or short-lived, appearance of something.
- noun A look of joy or liveliness on one's face.
- noun (countable) Sometimes as hot gleam: a warm ray of sunlight; also, a period of warm weather, for instance, between showers of rain.
- noun (uncountable) Brightness or shininess; radiance, splendour.
- verb (transitive) Chiefly in conjunction with an adverb: to cause (light) to shine.
- verb To shine, especially in an indistinct or intermittent manner; to glisten, to glitter.
- verb (figuratively) To be strongly but briefly apparent.
- verb (intransitive, falconry, obsolete) Of a hawk or other bird of prey: to disgorge filth from its crop or gorge.
Synonyms
leam flicker glimmer trace dazzle lambency shine glint glow sparkle flare flash kindle gleaming glitter glisten
Etymology
From Middle English glem, gleam, gleme (“shaft of light; part of a comet’s tail; reflected sparkle; dawn; daylight; radiance (physical or spiritual); something fleeting”), from Old English glǣm (“gleam”), from Proto-Germanic *glaimiz (“brightness; splendour”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to shine”).
* German Low German Gleem (“shine, luster, gloss”)
* Faroese glæma (“gleam, glimmer”)
* Old High German glīmen (“to glow, shine”); gleimo, glīmo (“glowworm”) (Middle High German glīme, gleime)
* Old Saxon glīmo (“brightness”)
From Middle English glemen (“to shine; to glance, look”) [and other forms], from glem, gleam (noun) (see etymology 1) + -en (suffix forming the infinitive of verbs). Cognate with German Low German glemen (“to glow, shine”).
A variant of Middle English gleimen, gleym (“to smear; to make slimy or sticky; to fill up (the stomach); to nauseate; of a slimy or viscous substance: to be stuck together; (figuratively) to captivate, ensnare; to infect with heresy”) [and other forms], probably a blend of glet (“slimy or viscous matter produced by animals; mucus, phlegm; congestion of mucus or phlegm in the body; viscosity”), gleu (“substance used to stick things together, glue; viscous medicine made from plants”), etc. + Old Norse kleima (“to daub, smear”) (whence Old English clǣman (“to smear”)) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *klaimijaną (“to smear with clay, to mortar”), from *klaimaz (“clay; mortar”), from Proto-Indo-European *gleh₁y- (“to glue, stick; to smear”)).
Webster’s 1913
- verb To disgorge filth, as a hawk.
- noun A shoot of light; a small stream of light; a beam; a ray; a glimpse.
- noun Brightness; splendor.
- verb To shoot, or dart, as rays of light; as, at the dawn, light gleams in the east.
Etymology [Cf. OE. glem birdlime, glue, phlegm, and E. englaimed.]
Etymology [OE. glem, gleam, AS. glæm, prob. akin to E. glimmer, and perh. to Gr. Glitter.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “gleam”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details