Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A faint and tremulous gleaming or shining.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A gleam or glimmering.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of shimmer.
  • noun A gleam or glimmer.

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word shimmering.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "Aramaic Lord's Prayer

    O Silent Sound,

    whose shimmering music pulsates

    at the heart of each and all,

    Clear a space in us where thy melody

    may be perceived in its purity.

    Let the rhythm of thy counsel reverberate through our lives,

    so that we move to the beat of justice, love, and peace.

    Then, our whole being at one with thy song,

    grant that the earth may be filled

    with the beauty of thy voice.

    Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share

    what each being needs to grow and flourish,

    And give us courage to embrace our shadow with emptiness,

    as we embrace others in their darkness.

    But let us not be captive to uncertainty,

    nor cling to fruitless pursuits.

    For from thee springs forth

    the rhythm, the melody, and the harmony,

    which restores all to balance, again and again.

    Ameyn."

    - rendered by Mark Hathaway based on the work of Neil Douglas-Klotz in 'Prayers of the Cosmos', 1990.

    December 24, 2007

  • "One morning, after several weeks of showers and storms, I heard in my chimney—instead of the formless, elastic, sombre wind which stirred in me a longing to go to the sea—the cooing of the pigeons, nesting in the wall outside; shimmering and unexpected like a first hyacinth gently tearing open its nutritious heart to release its flower of sound, mauve and satin-soft, letting into my still dark and shuttered bedroom as through an opened window the warmth, the brightness, the fatigue of a first fine day."

    --The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Revised by D.J. Enright, pp 186-187 of the Modern Library paperback edition

    August 4, 2008

  • "Weary, resigned, occupied for several hours still with its immemorial task, the grey day stitched its shimmering needlework of light and shade, and it saddened me to think that I was to be left alone with a thing that knew me no more than would a seamstress who, installed by the window so as to see better while she finishes her work, pays no attention to the person present with her in the room."

    --The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, Revised by D.J. Enright, p 479 of the Modern Library paperback edition

    September 2, 2008

  • "My joy at having rediscovered it was enhanced by the tone, so friendly and familiar, which it adopted in addressing me, so persuasive, so simple, and yet without subduing the shimmering beauty with which it glowed."

    --The Captive & The Fugitive by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright, p 332 of the Modern Library paperback edition

    January 20, 2010

  • The yellow-toothed wolf from the Little Red Riding Hood book I had when I was a child comes to me - purple jacket and all - shimmering out of the wall or the fire or the carpet or just thin air, comes to me and wraps his bigger weightless body around mine and tries to get in. From "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.

    March 27, 2012