different between scintillate vs flicker

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin scintill?tus, past participle of scintill?re (“to sparkle, glitter, gleam, flash”), from scintilla (“a spark”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s?nt?le?t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?s?nt?le?t/
• Hyphenation: scin?til?late

Verb

scintillate (third-person singular simple present scintillates, present participle scintillating, simple past and past participle scintillated)

1. (intransitive) To give off sparks; to shine as if emanating sparks; to twinkle or glow.
   1. (astronomy) Of a star or other celestial body: to vary rapidly in brightness; to twinkle.
   2. (nuclear physics) Especially of a phosphor: to emit a flash of light upon absorbing ionizing radiation.
2. (transitive, now rare) To throw off like sparks.
   • 1857, Anthony Trollope, “Mr. Arabin”, in Barchester Towers: In Three Volumes, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, OCLC 911659634; republished as Barchester Towers. [...] In Two Volumes (Hand and Pocket Library; II), volume I, New York, N.Y.: Dick & Fitzgerald, 18 Ann Street, [1860], OCLC 863553483, page 201:

     As a boy young Arabin took up the cudgels on the side of the Tractarians, and at Oxford he sat for a while at the feet of the great [John Henry] Newman. To this cause he lent all his faculties. For it he concocted verses, for it he made speeches, for it he scintillated the brightest sparks of his quiet wit.

Derived terms

• scintillating (adjective)
• scintillation
• scintillator

Related terms

• scintilla
• stencil
• tinsel

Translations

Further reading

• scintillate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• scintillate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• scintillate at OneLook Dictionary Search

Italian

Verb

scintillate

1. second-person plural present and imperative of scintillare

Latin

Verb

scintill?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of scintill?

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?fl?k?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?fl?k?/
• Rhymes: -?k?(?)

Etymology 1

From Middle English flikeren (“to flutter”), from Old English flicerian, flicorian (“to flutter”).

Akin to Saterland Frisian flikkerje (“to flicker”),West Frisian flikkerje (“to flicker”), Dutch flikkeren (“to flicker, flutter”), German Low German flickern (“to light up, flash, flicker”). Compare Old English flacor (“flickering, fluttering”), German flackern (“to flicker, flutter”), Old English fl?o?an (“to fly”).

Noun

flicker (countable and uncountable, plural flickers)

1. An unsteady flash of light.

2. A short moment.

Translations

Verb

flicker (third-person singular simple present flickers, present participle flickering, simple past and past participle flickered)

1. (intransitive) To burn or shine unsteadily, or with a wavering light.
   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, The Death of the Old Year

     The shadows flicker to and fro.

   • Long after his cigar burnt bitter, he sat with eyes fixed on the blaze. When the flames at last began to flicker and subside, his lids fluttered, then drooped; but he had lost all reckoning of time when he opened them again to find Miss Erroll in furs and ball-gown kneeling on the hearth and heaping kindling on the coals, […].

2. (intransitive) To keep going on and off; to appear and disappear for short moments; to flutter.
   • 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, Ch.3:

     There I lay on one side with a thin and rotten plank between the dead man and me, dazed with the blow to my head, and breathing hard; while the glow of torches as they came down the passage reddened and flickered on the roof above.

   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

     The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf, and the merry firelight flickered and played over everything without distinction.

   • 1967, Barry Mason (writer), Tom Jones (performer), Delilah

     I saw the light on the night that I passed by her window
     I saw the flickering shadow of love on her blind
3. To flutter; to flap the wings without flying.

   • And flickering on her nest made short essays to sing.

Translations

Etymology 2

1808, American English, probably echoic of the bird's call, or from the white spotted plumage which appears to flicker.

Noun

flicker (plural flickers)

1. (US) Any of certain small woodpeckers, especially of the genus Colaptes.

Derived terms

• northern flicker (Colaptes auratus)
• yellow-shafted flicker (Colaptes auratus auratus)
• red-shafted flicker (Colaptes auratus cafer)
• Caribbean flicker (Colaptes auratus chrysocaulosus)
• Guatemalan flicker (Colaptes auratus mexicanoides)
• Campo flicker (Colaptes campestris)
• Pampas flicker (Colaptes campestris)
• gilded flicker (Colaptes chrysoides)
• Fernandina's flicker (Colaptes fernandinae)
• Bermuda flicker (Colaptes oceanicus)
• Chilean flicker (Colaptes pitius)
• Andean flicker (Colaptes rupicola)

Translations

See also

• flicker on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Etymology 3

flick +? -er

Noun

flicker (plural flickers)

1. One who flicks.

Derived terms

• bean flicker

Anagrams

• fickler, frickle