shimmer

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“
Giant honeybees are known to flip their bellies up en masse to create a giant wave called a shimmer, somewhat akin to humans rhythmically throwing their hands in the air in a wave at a football game.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. intransitive verb To shine with a subdued flickering light. See Synonyms at flash.
  2. intransitive verb To appear as a wavering or flickering image, as in a reflection on water or through heat waves in air.
  3. noun A flickering or tremulous light; a glimmer.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (3)

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Examples (50)

  • Now he saw a faint shimmer, as of a twist of air rising in the heat. —  Piers Anthony - [Xanth 29] - Pet Peeve (2005)
  • The stars are out tonight; constellations Junior can't name shimmer in the moist midnight heat. —  Omni: August 1994
  • There was a shimmer, and suddenly she looked twice as good, but in a different way. —  The Dastard
  • But Shea's prose lacks the crystalline edge that gives even Vance's darkest tales a bright shimmer, the sense that if the Dying Earth is some mordant god's game, still it is a game. —  F ;SF - vol 099 issue 03 - September 2000
  • A momentary shimmer, and Kira suddenly found herself on the same level as Taran'atar, in the otherwise empty holosuite. —  Star Trek - DS9 - Section 31 book 3 - Abyss
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Related

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

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

glimmer ·  sheen ·  blur ·  radiance ·  glitter ·  haze ·  swirl ·  ripple ·  halo ·  glow ·  streak ·  streamer

Used in the same contextWord Family

shimmer:   shimmered ·  shimmering
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 shimeren, from Old English scimerian.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. from Middle English shimeren, schimeren, shemeren, schemeren, from Anglo-Saxon seimrian, scymrian (= Middle Dutch schemeren, schemelen, Dutch schemeren = Middle Low German schemeren, Low German schemmeren, later G. schimmern = Swedish skimra), shimmer, gleam, freq. from scima, etc., shade, glimmer: see shim, shime.
  2. Middle Dutch schemer, schemel = Dutch schemer = German schimmer = Swedish skimmer; from the verb.
  3. from shim + -er.
  4. shimmer, n.
 

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/ˈʃɪmər/
by American Heritage

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