Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- intransitive verb To shine with slight, intermittent gleams, as distant lights or stars; flicker; glimmer. synonym: flash.
- intransitive verb To be bright or sparkling, as with merriment or delight.
- intransitive verb To blink or wink the eyes.
- intransitive verb To move about or to and fro rapidly and gracefully; flit.
- intransitive verb To emit (light) in slight, intermittent gleams.
- noun A slight, intermittent gleam of light; a sparkling flash; a glimmer.
- noun A sparkle of merriment or delight in the eye.
- noun A brief interval; a twinkling.
- noun A rapid to-and-fro movement.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To shut an eye or the eyes with an involuntary twitch or with a quick voluntary and significant action; blink; wink.
- Of the eyelids, to open and shut with frequent involuntary twitches; hence, of anything that moves rapidly, to dart to and fro.
- To pass in and out of sight rapidly, as a light; flash at almost insensible intervals; shine with quick, irregular gleams; scintillate; sparkle, as a star.
- To open and shut rapidly; wink; blink.
- To emit in quick gleams; flash out.
- To influence or charm by sparkling.
- noun A twitching of the eyelid; a blinking; a wink.
- noun A quick, tremulous light; a glimmer; a sparkle; a flash.
- noun The time required for a wink; a twinkling.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A closing or opening, or a quick motion, of the eye; a wink or sparkle of the eye.
- noun A brief flash or gleam, esp. when rapidly repeated.
- noun The time of a wink; a twinkling.
- intransitive verb To open and shut the eye rapidly; to blink; to wink.
- intransitive verb To shine with an intermitted or a broken, quavering light; to flash at intervals; to sparkle; to scintillate.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb of a source of light to
shine with aflickering light ; toglimmer - verb to be
bright withdelight - verb to
bat ,blink orwink theeyes - verb to
flit to and fro - noun a
sparkle or glimmer of light - noun a sparkle of delight in the eyes.
- noun a
flitting movement
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb emit or reflect light in a flickering manner
- noun a rapid change in brightness; a brief spark or flash
- verb gleam or glow intermittently
- noun merriment expressed by a brightness or gleam or animation of countenance
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word twinkle.
Examples
-
The pink tone to the twinkle is the iridium based particle beams cooking off a fusion drive.
Archive 2007-07-01 2007
-
It is not that we see a smile, or a reaction etc….what we see is what we call a twinkle in her eye.
-
An idealist may say to a capitalist, 'Don't you sometimes feel in the rich twilight, when the lights twinkle from the distant hamlet in the hills, that all humanity is a holy family?'
-
Fairfax County political activist Ben Tribbett, quoted Connolly as saying about Herrity, He was a political adversary, but he would do it more often than not with a certain twinkle in his eye.
-
"Connolly's quote:" He was a political adversary, but he would do it more often than not with a certain twinkle in his eye.
-
The day of Vladimir Nabokov's death -- July 2, 1977 -- is firmly fixed in my memory, for on the following day Donald Barthelme said casually to me, with a puckish lift of his upper lip and what in non-Barthelmian prose might be described as a twinkle of the stone-colored eye behind wire-rimmed glasses: Happy?
Joyce Carol Oates's 'In the Absence of Mentors/Monsters': Narrative Magazine 2010
-
The day of Vladimir Nabokov's death -- July 2, 1977 -- is firmly fixed in my memory, for on the following day Donald Barthelme said casually to me, with a puckish lift of his upper lip and what in non-Barthelmian prose might be described as a twinkle of the stone-colored eye behind wire-rimmed glasses: Happy?
Joyce Carol Oates's 'In the Absence of Mentors/Monsters': Narrative Magazine 2010
-
One of the most fascinating results of fifth-chakra distress that I have observed clinically is a loss of the so-called twinkle in the eye.
Meditation as Medicine M.D. Dharma Singh Khalsa 2001
-
One of the most fascinating results of fifth-chakra distress that I have observed clinically is a loss of the so-called twinkle in the eye.
Meditation as Medicine M.D. Dharma Singh Khalsa 2001
-
He could recall the twinkle in her eye, the sub-mockery in her tone, as she commented with that half-contemptuous "Yes -- George something!" upon his blundering ignorance.
The Damnation of Theron Ware Harold Frederic 1877
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.