glimpse
Pluralglimpses
Verbglimpses, glimpsing, glimpsed
Pluralglimpses
Formsglimpses, glimpsing, glimpsed
- 1A brief, incomplete look at someone or something, typically caught in passing.
She caught a glimpse of the actor as his car sped past.
Through the gap in the curtains he caught only a glimpse of the room beyond.
Note
The everyday noun, and nearly always a glimpse of something. You get, catch or have one: in 1682 John Bunyan's townsfolk "had a glimpse of him" as he escaped. John Lyly in 1580 pairs "the first glymse" with "the second glaunce" as near equivalents. Still, a glimpse is usually something caught, while a glance is something given. Old spellings like glims and glymse show the p arriving late.
- 2
- 3To perceive something abstract or intangible briefly and incompletely, as a fleeting realization.
Reading his letters, she glimpsed the depth of his loneliness.
Only near the end of the talk did the audience glimpse the speaker's real intent.
Similarsense, perceive, discern, grasp
Note
Sight turned inward: what is caught is a truth, a scale or a feeling rather than an object. The verb likes a hedge. People have only begun to glimpse something, or seem to glimpse it, as James Russell Lowell does in 1871 with "something of this familiar weakness." The verb already admits the view is partial, and the softening words stress how tentative the understanding still is.
- 4A faint or imprecise idea about something; a vague inkling of how matters stand.
The report gives readers a glimpse of how the decision was reached.
After the meeting I finally had a glimpse of where the company was heading.
Similarinkling, idea, sense, insight, notion
Note
Understanding that arrives in fragments. The noun leans toward the plural and toward truth. Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature (1836) prizes sentences "which contain glimpses of truth," and Tennyson in 1842 finds "glimpses of the true" among broken lights. Unlike the glimpse that is a look, what is partial here is the knowledge itself. That is why the word suits modest claims about insight.
- 5To look briefly and incompletely at or upon something; to glance in passing.
He glimpsed at the headlines before folding the newspaper away.
Travelers often glimpse upon the ruins from the road without stopping.
Note
Here the verb names the act of looking rather than what was caught. It drops its object and takes a preposition, chiefly at or upon, or an adverb. In 1855 Nathaniel Hawthorne, glimpsing in through a cottage door, sees straight into the kitchen. With an object, as in the ordinary seeing sense, you glimpse the roof. With at, you aim a quick look, much as you glance.
- 6To glimmer or shimmer, giving out light that is weak and wavering.
Harbor lights were glimpsing through the fog as the boat came in.
Far-off campfires glimpse along the ridge at dusk.
Similarshine, shimmer, gleam, glisten, sparkle
Note
The oldest light in the word: Middle English glimsen meant to dazzle or glisten, from a root meaning "to shine," and glimpse is a doublet of glimmer. Early writers spelled it glimse, without the p. George Gascoigne's The Steele Glas (1576) has a crystal glass that "glimseth brave and bright." Its nearest synonym is glitter. Outside such texts a reader will take the verb as seeing, so this sense needs its context.
- 7To provide a brief and incomplete look, often onto a view beyond.
A row of slits in the tower wall glimpse out across the plain.
The basement window glimpsed out onto a narrow strip of sky.
Note
A rare use in which the opening does the work. A window, slit or gap glimpses out onto what lies beyond, and the viewer drops out of the sentence. Out is the usual partner. Because the use is uncommon, it can read as a slip for "afford a glimpse," so keep it for descriptive writing where the turn is clearly intended.
- 8A brief, unspecified stretch of time; a fleeting moment that passes almost at once.
Similarmoment, second, instant, minute, flash
Note
Time measured by the length of a look. Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage shows the construction: Harold "pleased for a glimpse appeared," that is, for a moment. Rare and figurative, the sense works best inside "for a glimpse," where the duration is unmistakable. Elsewhere a reader will hear the ordinary look.
- 9A brief, sudden flash of light; a momentary glimmer in the darkness.
A glimpse from the lighthouse cut through the fog.
At length the forest of Falkland received them, and a glimpse of the moon showed the dark and huge tower, an appendage of royalty itself, though granted for a season to the Duke of Albany.
1828, [Walter Scott], Chronicles of the CanongateNote
The light sense sits closest to the word's roots: Middle English glimsen meant “to dazzle, to glisten,” from a root meaning “to shine,” and glimmer is its doublet. Shakespeare's Hamlet speaks of “the glimpses of the moon,” and Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) of a lightning glimpse. A reader meeting it should hear flashing light, not the brief look. In new writing it reads as deliberately old.
- 10To come into view or begin to do so, especially dimly or indistinctly; to dawn.
As the fog lifted, the far shore began to glimpse into view.
Morning glimpsed over the silent fields.
Note
A verse word for things coming faintly into view. In Michael Drayton's Barrons Warres (1630), shadows are "glimpsing in his sight" as clouds crowd the sky. It shares its shining root with the glimmering sense, applied now to emergence rather than to light. Archaic and poetic, it belongs in deliberately old-style writing. In ordinary prose, readers will expect the verb to mean seeing.
- 11A faint and often temporary appearance of something; a tinge or passing trace.
A glimpse of green had crept into the winter hedgerows.
[T]here is no man hath a vertue, that he hath not a glimpſe of, nor any mã [man] an attaint, but he carries ſome ſtain of it.
c. 1602, William Shakespeare, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. (First Quarto)Note
An old sense in which the trace lies in the thing, not in the eye or mind. Shakespeare's Troylus and Cresseid says no man has a virtue "that he hath not a glimpse of," and Milton's Paradise Regain'd shows "the glimpses of his Fathers glory" shining in a face. Now obsolete, it is easily misread as the inkling. Today one would write hint or trace.
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Practice
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Origin
The verb comes from the earlier (now obsolete) 'glimse', from Middle English 'glimsen' ("to dazzle; to glisten; to glance with the eyes"), possibly from Old English *glimsian and ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root *ǵʰley- ("to shine"); it is a doublet of 'glimmer'. The noun is derived from the verb.