Pronunciations (3)
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/ˈɡlɪm(p)s/
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[ˈɡl̥ɪm(p)s]
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ɡlɪmps
Verb
To see or view (someone, or something tangible) briefly and incompletely.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (3)
Morning!—the Vestal Mother of the Sun / Seem'st thou to be, since from thy bosom born, / (Thou that first glimpsest—like a white-stoled nun!—) / He springeth forth—Oh! thou triumphal Morn!— / His race of glory and of joy to run; […]
Those wild hills are surely the outpost of a frightful cosmic race—as I doubt all the less since reading that a new ninth planet has been glimpsed beyond Neptune, just as those influences had said it would be glimpsed.
The illumined portholes that Eveline [in Eveline (1904) by James Joyce] glimpses mean that the night is drawing in, that the ship will be sailing into the dark. 'Illumined' also carries its own gothic charge, and what she glimpses is not therefore a passenger ship but a ship of death, more foreboding than inviting.
To perceive (something intangible) briefly and incompletely.
Usage- Figurative
- Transitive
- Examples
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I have only begun to glimpse the magnitude of the problem.
What memories? / The pure love thoughts and who may know / Thou glimpsest from the long ago?
More examples (3)
I seem to glimpse something of this familiar weakness in Mr. [Gilbert] White.
A hope that, glimpsed, must fade; / A form, illusion made, / That, vanishing, shall come no more again!
To glimpse the actual woman behind these texts in any kind of full and adequate way is impossible. New studies of the political, economic, social and cultural fabric of first-century Palestine, however, enable us to fill in aspects of her life in broad strokes.
Chiefly followed by at or upon: to look at briefly and incompletely; to glance.
Usage- Intransitive
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More examples (1)
The door always opens directly into the kitchen, without any vestibule; and, glimpsing in, you see that a cottager's life must be the very plainest and homeliest that ever was lived by men and women.
To shine with a faint, unsteady light; to glimmer, to shimmer.
Usage- Intransitive
- Synonyms
- Examples
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More examples (2)
O Lothſome place where I / Haue ſene and herd my dere / When in my hart her eye / Hath made her thought appere / By glimſing with ſuch grace / As fortune it ne would, / That laſten any ſpace, / Betwene vs lenger ſhould.
[O]ur curious yeares can finde / The chriſtal glas, vvhich glimſeth braue & bright, / And ſhevves the thing, much better than it is, / Beguylde vvith foyles, of ſundry ſubtil ſights, / So that they ſeeme, and couet not to be.
To appear or start to appear, especially faintly or unclearly; to dawn.
Usage- Archaic
- Intransitive
- Poetic
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Straitvvaies on heapes the thronging cloudes ariſe, / As though the heauen vvere angry vvith the night, / Deformed ſhadovves, glimpſing in his ſight / As darkenes, for it vvould more darkened be, / Through thoſe poore crannies forcde it ſelfe to ſee.
Sometimes followed by out: to provide a brief and incomplete look.
Usage- Intransitive
- Rare
Noun
Chiefly followed by of: a brief and incomplete look.
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I only got a glimpse of the car, so I can tell you the colour but not the registration number.
[T]he Baſilike, whoſe eyes procure delight to the looker at the firſt glymſe, and death at the ſecond glaunce.
More examples (11)
But had thoſe vvits the vvonders of their dayes, / Or that ſvveete Teian Poet [Anacreon] vvhich did ſpend / His plenteous vaine in ſetting forth her [Venus's] prayſe, / Seene but a glims of this, vvhich I pretend, / Hovv vvondrouſly vvould he her face commend, […]
All that could be gathered vvas, that he had lurked a vvhile about the out-ſide of the Tovvn, and that here and there one or other had a glimpſe of him as he did make his eſcape out of Manſoul, […]
[T]o the ſouth a ſmall opening led the eye to a glimpſe of the landſcape belovv, vvhich, ſeen beyond the dark javvs of the cliff, appeared free, and light, and gaily coloured, melting avvay into the blue and diſtant mountains.
The moſſy pales that ſkirt the orchard-green, / Here hid by ſhrub-vvood, there by glimpſes ſeen; […]
This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the threat of the fiend—"I will be with you on your wedding-night!" Such was my sentence, and on that night would the dæmon employ every art to destroy me and tear me from the glimpse of happiness which promised partly to console my sufferings.
As the eye darts into these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses of quaint effigies: some kneeling in nitches, as if in devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, with hands piously pressed together; […]
Not a glimpse can you get of the merits or defects of the performers: they are hidden in a profusion of barbarous epithets and wilful rhodomontade.
And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose; [he] went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
Selwyn, sitting up rumpled and cross-legged on the floor, after having boloed Drina to everybody's exquisite satisfaction, looked around at the sudden rustle of skirts to catch a glimpse of a vanishing figure—a glimmer of ruddy hair and the white curve of a youthful face, half-buried in a muff.
On the other hand, to arrive after dusk, when the multitude of garish little public-houses are lit up, giving glimpses of crowded jostling bars and taprooms, is an introduction to a fine city well calculated to affect even the most nonchalant.
An opening sequence, featuring a de-aged [Harrison] Ford playing a younger Indy [i.e., Indiana Jones], is a bold and nostalgic gambit, offering a glimpse of what you've missed.
A brief, sudden flash of light; a glimmer.
Usage- Archaic
- Examples
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More examples (3)
[W]hat may this meane, / That thou, dead corſe, againe in compleate ſteele, / Reuiſſits thus the glimſes of the Moone, / Making night hideous, and vve fooles of nature, / So horridely to ſhake our diſpoſition, / VVith thoughts beyond the reaches of our ſoules?
Sunk in his [Despair's] skull, his ſtaring eyes did glovve, / That made him deadly looke, their glimpſe did ſhovve / Like Cockatrices eyes, that ſparks of poyſon throvve.
They that held the Stars of heaven vvere but rayes and flaſhing glimpſes of the Empyreall light, through holes and perforations of the upper heaven, took of the natural ſhadovvs of ſtars, […]
Light as the Lightning glimpſ they ran, they flevv, […]
If I, Celeſtial Sire, in aught / Have ſerv'd thy VVill, or gratify'd thy Thought, / One glimpſe of Glory to my Iſſue give; […]
More examples (3)
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.
[W]e climb'd / The slope to Vivian-place, and turning saw / […] / The shimmering glimpses of a stream; […]
[…] English Crackenthorpius (who has the honour to be an ancestor of Mr. [William] Wordsworth), though buried for two centuries, will revisit the glimpses of the moon.
A faint or imprecise idea; an inkling.
Usage- Figurative
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Every surmise and vaticination of the mind is entitled to a certain respect, and we learn to prefer imperfect theories, and sentences, which contain glimpses of truth, to digested systems which have no one valuable suggestion.
Let there be thistles, there are grapes; / If old things, there are new; / Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, / Yet glimpses of the true.
A brief, unspecified amount of time; a moment.
Usage- Figurative
- Rare
- Examples
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More examples (1)
[…] Alwin smiled, / When aught that from his young lips archly fell / The gloomy film from Harold's eye beguiled; / And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe.
A faint (and often temporary) appearance; a tinge.
Usage- Obsolete
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More examples (1)
Reuiued with a glimſe of grace old ſorowes to let fal, / The hidden ſtraines I know and ſecret ſnares of loue: / How ſoone a loke wil print a thought, that neuer may remoue.
[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.
[T]here is not any creature that hath ſo neere a glympſe of their [spirits'] nature, as light in the Sunne and Elements; […]
More examples (1)
VVho is this vve muſt learn, for man he ſeems / In all his lineaments, though in his face / The glimpſes of his Fathers glory ſhine.
Noun
a quick look
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
a brief or incomplete view
- Examples
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from the window he could catch a glimpse of the lake
a vague indication
- Broader terms
- Examples
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he caught only a glimpse of the professor's meaning
Verb
catch a glimpse of or see briefly
- Broader terms
- Examples
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We glimpsed the Queen as she got into her limousine