Meaning

6 senses
  1. (countable)An appearance of light, especially one which is indistinct or small, or short-lived.

    Schein, Schimmer

    лучluč, свет

    світлоsvitlo, відблискvidblysk

    an appearance of reflected light

  2. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)An indistinct sign of something; a glimpse or hint.

    The rescue workers preserved a gleam of optimism that the trapped miners might still survive.

    Funke, Schimmer

    про́блескpróblesk

    проблискproblysk

  3. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)A bright, but intermittent or short-lived, appearance of something.

  4. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)A look of joy or liveliness on one's face.

  5. (countable, obsolete)Sometimes as hot gleam: a warm ray of sunlight; also, a period of warm weather, for instance, between showers of rain.

  6. (obsolete, uncountable)Brightness or shininess; radiance, splendour.

Examples

34 sentences
  1. Candles gleamed brightly beside the jacuzzi.

  2. Still gleams an element of hope.

  3. The floor gleamed like a mirror.

    ruПол блестел как зеркало. — Selena777

    deDer Fußboden glänzte wie ein Spiegel. — al_ex_an_der

  4. The floor was gleaming like a mirror.

    deDer Fußboden glänzte wie ein Spiegel. — al_ex_an_der

  5. The knight's armour gleamed in the sun.

    ruДоспехи рыцаря блестели на солнце. — marafon

Translations

5 languages
Українська
By meaning 2
indistinct or small, or short-lived, appearance of light:
indistinct sign of something — see also glimpse, hint:
Русский
By meaning 2
indistinct or small, or short-lived, appearance of light:
indistinct sign of something — see also glimpse, hint:
Deutsch
By meaning 2
indistinct or small, or short-lived, appearance of light:
indistinct sign of something — see also glimpse, hint:

Origin

From Middle English glem, gleam, gleme (“shaft of light; part of a comet’s tail; reflected

From Middle English glem, gleam, gleme (“shaft of light; part of a comet’s tail; reflected sparkle; dawn; daylight; radiance (physical or spiritual); something fleeting”), from Old English glǣm (“gleam”), from Proto-Germanic *glaimiz (“brightness; splendour”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to shine”).

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Forms

plural: gleams
Singulargleam
Pluralgleams

regular

Synonyms

9 synonyms
Close in meaning

Word family

5 related words

See also

neighbours in the dictionary

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

gleam — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto