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drpaladin

Posted

Hope is more often found in glimmers than bright flashes.

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Bill W

Posted (edited)

"Glimmer" originated in the Middle English period (circa 1400–1500), deriving from German roots related to light and faint, unsteady movement.  It is formed from the verb glim ("to shine") combined with a frequentative suffix (-er), indicating repeated, small actions, similar to its cognates glimmern (German) and glimre (Danish).  It shares the Proto-Germanic base *glim-, which is also the source of the Old English word glæm ("brightness"), leading to the modern word "gleam".  The word evolved from Middle English glimeren or glemeren, which was used to describe shining or flickering faintly.  Glimmer is a frequentative form of glim and is closely related to glimpse.  It is also connected to a wider Proto-Indo-European root, *gel-, which means "to shine" and is the ancestor of words like glassglitterglow, and yellow.  While modern usage refers to a faint light, early usage in the 15th century could sometimes indicate a brighter, albeit shaky, shining before settling into the meaning of a dim, wavering light.   

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the earliest known use of glimmer as a noun is in the mid-16th century, specifically cited to 1567 in the writings of Thomas Harman, a known recorder of vagabond cant.  Earliest evidence of the verb glimmer is from the Middle English period, circa 1400, in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  The verb glimmering  appears even earlier, as an adjective before 1375.  The term glimmers was coined by Deb Dana in 2018, this term refers to small, positive moments that promote calm and joy, functioning as the opposite of a "trigger". 

Edited by Bill W
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