Glittering

How to spell glittering

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce glittering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does glittering mean?

1. adjectiveShining brightly with a sparkling, broken light.
2. verbPresent participle of glitter: shining with a sparkling, flickering light.

Glittering in a sentence

• adjective

  The glittering chandelier dominated the hotel lobby.

• verb

  The diamonds were glittering under the jeweller's bright lamps.

• adjective

  Frost left a glittering crust across the parked cars.

• verb

  The lake kept glittering as the afternoon sun moved across it.

Where does glittering come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The base word glitter entered English in the Middle Ages from Old Norse glitra, meaning 'to shine' or 'to sparkle', a verb that Scandinavian settlers brought to Britain. That Norse word belonged to a wide Germanic family of words beginning with the sound cluster 'gl', many of which carry ideas of light and brightness, such as gleam, glisten, glow and glint. The literal sense was the unsteady, flashing brightness of light bouncing off a moving or faceted surface, like frost, water or jewels. By the fourteenth century glitter was well settled in English, and the present participle glittering came to be used as an adjective describing anything that sparkles. The doubled 't' is the spelling trap here: it survives because the stress falls on the short first syllable, and a single 't' would suggest a long vowel, as in 'gliter'.

How the word is built

• glitter (to shine with sparkling light, from Old Norse glitra)
• -ing (participle/adjective suffix)