gleam

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However, occasionally a gleam of the old sunshine illumines, so to speak, the chambers I occupy, and such a gleam was my retention for the Defence in the cause of Quicksilver v. Nore_. It was a Patent Case, and one of the deepest possible interest.

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Definitions (24)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun A brief beam or flash of light: saw gleams of daylight through the cracks.
  2. noun A steady but subdued shining; a glow: the gleam of burnished gold.
  3. noun A brief or dim indication; a trace: a gleam of intelligence.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (9)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (5)

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Examples

  • But through this distorting medium we see the soul of John himself, like a gleam-lit landscape through the whirl of a storm; a strange weird sinister thing, glimmering in a dubious light between the blasphemer we half see in him with the singer's eyes and the saint we half descry with our own. —  Robert Browning
  • However, occasionally a gleam of the old sunshine illumines, so to speak, the chambers I occupy, and such a gleam was my retention for the Defence in the cause of Quicksilver v. Nore_. It was a Patent Case, and one of the deepest possible interest. —  Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 23, 1891
  • Not a gleam was there! —  The poetical works of George MacDonald in two volumes — Volume 2
  • Panting heavily, Ali started up, but the gleam was about him still, for the bright rays of the morning sun were shining down through the attap roof, and with a moan of misery he sank back once more on finding that he had been overcome by weariness, and that this last painful episode was only a dream. —  Middy and Ensign
  • a gleam of the old sunshine illumines, so to speak, the chambers I occupy, and such a gleam was my retention for the Defence in the cause of _Quicksilver_ v. _Nore_. —  Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 23, 1891
 

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

glint ·  glow ·  flash ·  glitter ·  grin ·  streak ·  spark ·  radiance ·  glare ·  sheen ·  ray ·  twinkle
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English glem, from Old English glǣm; see ghel-2 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. Also formerly or dial. gleem, from Middle English gleem, glem, from Anglo-Saxon glæm, splendor, brightness, gleam. Cf. Icelandic glāmr, a poet, name for the moon, Glāmr, the name of a famous ghost in the story of Grettir, Glāma, the name of a glacier (see under glamour); closely related to Anglo-Saxon gleomu (orig. *glimu), splendor, brightness, etc.: see glim, glimmer,’
  2. from Middle English glemen; from the noun: see gleam, n.
  3. Early modern English also gleme; a. variant of glean.
  4. Perhaps a variant of glean, as gleam is of glean.
 

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/glim/
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