Glimpse
nounA brief or partial view of something or someone.
How to spell glimpse
7 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce glimpse
What does glimpse mean?
- nounA brief or partial view of something or someone.
- verbTo see something briefly or partially.
Glimpse in a sentence
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noun
From the train window she caught a quick glimpse of the coastline.
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verb
Drivers can glimpse the harbour as they round the final bend.
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noun
The report offers only a partial glimpse into the company's finances.
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verb
Through the doorway you might glimpse the old workshop at the back.
Where does glimpse come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word comes from late Middle English glimsen, a verb meaning 'to shine faintly' or 'to glance', which is closely related to the older glimeren that gave us 'glimmer'. The whole family descends from a Germanic root suggesting a faint, fleeting brightness, the same source that underlies the everyday words 'gleam' and 'glow'. Over time the emphasis shifted from the faint shining itself to the brief, partial seeing of something, so by the 1400s a glimpse was a quick momentary view rather than a flicker of light. The silent root sense of 'briefness' survives in modern usage: a glimpse is always something caught only for an instant. The spelling keeps the awkward 'mps' cluster from that Germanic ancestry, which is the part writers most often stumble over.
How the word is built
- glimps- (from Middle English glimsen: to shine faintly, glance)
- -e
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