Glimpse Meaning

/ˈɡlɪm(p)s/
B1

Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

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verbTo see or view (someone, or something tangible) briefly and incompletely.

verbTo perceive (something intangible) briefly and incompletely.

At last he stopped before an old house, and caught another glimpse of the town.
We can get a glimpse of the lifestyle of ancient people from this wall painting.
He caught a glimpse of her in the crowd.
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
She only caught a quick ____ of the deer before it ran into the forest.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I only managed to catch a quick ____ of the rare bird before it flew away and disappeared into the trees.

The verb is derived from earlier glimse (obsolete), from Middle English glimsen (“to dazzle; to glisten; to glance with the eyes”), possibly from Old English *glimsian, from Proto-West Germanic *glimmisōjan, from Proto-Germanic *glimō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to shine”). Doublet of glimmer. The noun is derived from the verb. Cognates Dutch glimp (“glimpse”, noun) Middle Dutch glinsen (modern Dutch glinsteren (“to glint, glitter, shimmer, sparkle; to glance”), glimmen (“to gleam, shine”)) Middle High German glimsen (“to glow, smoulder”), glinsen (“to glimmer, shine”) Middle Low German glinsen, glintzen, glinzen (“to shimmer, shine”)

"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; […]" — c. 1838 (date written), Emmeline Stuart Wortley, “Sonnet”, in Sonnets, Written Chiefly during a Tour through Holland, Germany, Italy, Turkey, and Hungary, London: Joseph Rickerby, […], published 1839, →OCLC, page 99:
"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." — 1931 August, H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Whisperer in Darkness. Chapter 8.”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume XVIII, number 1, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 67, column 2:
"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." — 2008, David Pierce, “Saying Goodbye in ‘Eveline’: Emigration · The Language of ‘Eveline’”, in Reading Joyce, Abingdon, Oxfordshire; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2013, →ISBN, page 103:
"What memories? / The pure love thoughts and who may know / Thou glimpsest from the long ago?" — 1861, Andrew M‘Ewen, “Avalande, a Romaunt”, in Avalande. Fyttes and Fancyings, London: Charles H. Clarke, […], →OCLC, page 16:
"I seem to glimpse something of this familiar weakness in Mr. [Gilbert] White." — 1871, James Russell Lowell, “My Garden Acquaintance”, in My Study Windows, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 5:

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CEFR Practice Quiz
She only caught a quick ____ of the deer before it ran into the forest.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I only managed to catch a quick ____ of the rare bird before it flew away and disappeared into the trees.

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