Gleaming

How to spell gleaming

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gleaming

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gleaming mean?

1. adjectiveShining brightly, especially with a clean, polished, or reflective surface.
2. verbPresent participle of gleam: shining or reflecting light softly or brightly.

Gleaming in a sentence

• adjective

  The showroom was full of gleaming new cars under bright lights.

• verb

  The lake kept gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

• adjective

  She scrubbed the kitchen until every surface was gleaming and spotless.

• verb

  The polished trophy was gleaming on the shelf above his desk.

Where does gleaming come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English noun glǣm, which meant a flash of light, a brightness, or a beam. That root belonged to a wide Germanic family of glimmer words all built on the idea of faint shining: glimmer, glimpse, glint, and even the gloaming of dusk are all relatives. By Middle English the noun had a matching verb, to gleam, meaning to shine softly or brightly, and gleaming is simply its present participle, used both as a verb form and as a vivid describing word. The spelling preserves the long vowel with the ea pairing that English so often uses for that sound, as in beam and dream, which is the main thing to remember. The sense has stayed remarkably steady for over a thousand years: it has always been about light catching a surface and shining back.

How the word is built

• gleam (from Old English glǣm: a ray of light, brightness)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)