Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To shine with slight, intermittent gleams, as distant lights or stars; flicker; glimmer. See Synonyms at flash.
- v. To be bright or sparkling, as with merriment or delight: eyes that twinkled with joy.
- v. To blink or wink the eyes. See Synonyms at blink.
- v. To move about or to and fro rapidly and gracefully; flit.
- v. To emit (light) in slight, intermittent gleams.
- n. A slight, intermittent gleam of light; a sparkling flash; a glimmer.
- n. A sparkle of merriment or delight in the eye.
- n. A brief interval; a twinkling.
- n. A rapid to-and-fro movement.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- 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.
- n. A twitching of the eyelid; a blinking; a wink.
- n. A quick, tremulous light; a glimmer; a sparkle; a flash.
- n. The time required for a wink; a twinkling.
Wiktionary
- v. of a source of light to shine with a flickering light; to glimmer
- v. to be bright with delight
- v. to bat, blink or wink the eyes
- v. to flit to and fro
- n. a sparkle or glimmer of light
- n. a sparkle of delight in the eyes.
- n. a flitting movement
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To open and shut the eye rapidly; to blink; to wink.
- v. To shine with an intermitted or a broken, quavering light; to flash at intervals; to sparkle; to scintillate.
- n. A closing or opening, or a quick motion, of the eye; a wink or sparkle of the eye.
- n. A brief flash or gleam, esp. when rapidly repeated.
- n. The time of a wink; a twinkling.
WordNet 3.0
- v. emit or reflect light in a flickering manner
- n. a rapid change in brightness; a brief spark or flash
- v. gleam or glow intermittently
- n. merriment expressed by a brightness or gleam or animation of countenance
Etymologies
- Middle English, from Old English twinclian (Wiktionary)
- Middle English twinklen, from Old English twinclian, frequentative of twincan, to blink. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The pink tone to the twinkle is the iridium based particle beams cooking off a fusion drive.”
“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?”
The Huffington Post: Joyce Carol Oates's 'In the Absence of Mentors/Monsters': Narrative Magazine
“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.”
“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.”
“With our bare eyes, we saw Venus, Orions Belt, and then star after star I couldn't name twinkle into existence.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘twinkle’.
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Visuals
A list of words which yield surprising, beautiful, amusing, or otherwise noteworthy images here on Wordnik.
photochrom, fufluns, thank you, cool l..., postcard, picture postcard, cricket, physiological ill..., Gakuryū Ishii, ametropia, One Froggy Evening, rhodopsin, Santiago Calatrava and 636 more...
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henryar's list
marmoleum, menagerie, cyan, ochre, pilfer, discombobulate, loquacious, iridescent, amethyst, derelict, botulism, equilibrium and 240 more...
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Sounds
words that describe sound
atchoo, atishoo, babble, bam, bay, beep, blast, blather, bleat, bleep, blip, bong and 242 more...
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Words that sound nice
I can't say exactly what makes these words sound so harmonious...the finely balanced distribution of consonants and vowels? the lack of harsh sounds? the regal elegance of Latin roots? anyway...
felicity, luminous, caliper, amatory, valedictorian, sanatorium, nice, chrysalis, luminosity, luminescence, senescence, evanescence and 6 more...
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bling
( open list, visual, light, descriptive )
more:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/dynamic
even more:
sparkle, shine, gleam, glisten, shimmer, gloss, pearly, opalescent, iridescent, prismatic, multifaceted, glow and 35 more... -
[Open] Frequentative
“A verb which denotes the frequent occurrence or repetition of an action, as . . . waggle from wag.” — Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia.
Other examples include bobble (bob), bustle (b...dartle, stutter, agitate, dabble, waggle, aid, argue, daunt, expect, excite, espouse, dictate and 77 more...
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I am : bright
Verbs and adjectives (mostly adjectives) pertaining to physical light, brightness and/or clarity.
bright, brilliant, ablaze, afire, aflame, incandescent, fluorescent, phosphorescent, lucent, lambent, transparent, clear and 29 more...
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vivids's list
picturesque, lovelight, twinkle, agleam, droplet, sunlight, shimmer, epitome, shard, mist, starlight, rain and 23 more...
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VNCle
N stands for 'nasal', not 'n'
pimple, bungle, spindle, handle, amble, humble, simple, dimple, winkle, tinkle, single, dingle and 53 more...
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Childhood
Hula-Hoop, fairies, twirl, twinkle, glitter, candyland, firefly, June bug, wonderland, Alice-in-Wonderland, bedtime stories, spelling bee and 27 more...
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favored
visceral, twinkle, whalebone, incandescent, carousel, entangle, brevity, desolate, twirl, deltoid, graceless, tryst and 94 more...
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Fun Words
Words that are fun to say....
gobbledygook, jings, crivens, hullabaloo, wheech, brouhaha, pizzazz, harum-scarum, namby-pamby, pussyfoot, frippery, pitter-patter and 333 more...
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and ...
Words that, as I see it, have some fond connection to the Alice stories through their creation or particular use by Lewis Carroll. I mean to tie them all together with contexty comments!
alice, daisy-chain, white rabbit, waistcoat-pocket, rabbit-hole, marmalade, antipathy, antipode, curtsey, dinah, tea-time, rat-hole and 232 more...
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Star Verbs
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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Words Covered in Faery Dust (T)
words that evoke magic, mystery, mayhem, magnificence or anything else that glimmers in the grass
tabard, tadpole, taffeta, taffy, talisman, tallgrass, tam, tamarind, tamarack, tambourine, tango, tansy and 144 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for twinkle.

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