different between shimmer vs scintillate

English

Etymology

From Middle English schimeren, from Old English s?ymrian, s?imrian, s?imerian, from Proto-Germanic *skimar?n?. Cognate with Dutch schemeren, German schimmern.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /???m?(?)/

Verb

shimmer (third-person singular simple present shimmers, present participle shimmering, simple past and past participle shimmered)

1. (intransitive) To shine tremulously or intermittently; to gleam faintly.

   Synonyms: twinkle, sparkle, glisten, glimmer

   • 1581, John Studley (translator), Medea, Act 4, in Seneca his Tenne Tragedies, London: Thomas Marsh, p. 135,^[1]

     With dusky shimmering wanny globe, her lampe doth pale appeare

   • 1850, Alfred Tennyson, The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, 3rd edition, Conclusion, p. 173,^[2]

     The shimmering glimpses of a stream

   • 1954, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, New York: Ballantine Books, 1973, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 339,^[3]

     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.

   • 2018, Tsitsi Dangarembga, This Mournable Body, Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, Chapter 22,^[4]

     Pale tourists, tired but excited, emerge like apparitions from the heat haze that shimmers over the tarmac.

Derived terms

• ashimmer
• shimmerer
• shimmer stick
• shimmery

Translations

Noun

shimmer (plural shimmers)

1. A faint or veiled and tremulous gleam or shining.

   Synonym: glimmer

   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, London: Smith, Elder, Volume 2, Chapter 10, p. 254,^[5]

     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.

   • 1922, Katherine Anne Porter, “María Concepción” in Flowering Judas and Other Stories, New York: The Modern Library, 1940, p. 6,^[6]

     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.

   • 2013, Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers, New York: Vintage, 2014, Chapter 16, p. 294,^[7]

     He’d aimed film lamps at the rectangular pools, which sent reflections up the gallery wall in veined and fractured shimmers.

2. (signal processing) A measure of the irregularities in the loudness of a particular pitch over time.

   Coordinate term: jitter

   • 2010, Daniel R. Boone, The Voice and Voice Therapy, Pearson College Division (?ISBN)

     As such, perturbation measures can only be derived from vowels, most accurately, sustained vowels or steady-state portions of vowels extracted from connected speech. Two commonly obtained perturbation measures are jitter and shimmer.

Translations

Further reading

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

Yola

Etymology

From Middle English shimeren, from Old English s?ymrian, s?imrian, s?imerian.

Verb

shimmer (present participle shimmereen)

1. to glitter

References

• Jacob Poole (1867) , William Barnes, editor, A glossary, with some pieces of verse, of the old dialect of the English colony in the baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, J. Russell Smith, ?ISBN

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?