twinkling
Americannoun
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an act of shining with intermittent gleams of light.
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the time required for a wink; an instant.
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Archaic. winking; a wink.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of twinkling
Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; see origin at twinkle, -ing 1
Explanation
The adjective twinkling refers to light that appears sporadically bright and then faint. When the light from stars is twinkling, it may look as if they're winking at you. Of course, it's not the stars themselves that are twinkling, but their light, which gets refracted as it passes through the turbulence of the earth's atmosphere. The same goes for the lights of distant cities or any other lights that stay constant but appear to brighten and dim. As a noun, twinkling means something brief, as in "the twinkling of an eye."
Vocabulary lists containing twinkling
Let There Be Light: Synonyms for "Bright"
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"Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll, Chapters 7–9
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"Not-So-Starry Nights: Light Pollution Turns Night into Day"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Digital creators also walked the red carpet twinkling and sparkling in cultures and sculpted dresses.
From BBC ● May 10, 2026
In a twinkling, the report gets disappeared from public view and public comment as completely as if it had been dropped off the end of the Santa Monica Pier.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2026
The store’s front facade was wrapped in a giant plaid scarf made of 126,000 twinkling Christmas lights.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026
The audience rehashed its hunches, they circled potential suspects, they stared at a static image of a horrific crime scene, awash in twinkling moonlight.
From Slate ● Feb. 23, 2026
The black water was lapping against his giant shell, and the twinkling fishes were swimming around him.
From "When the Sea Turned to Silver" by Grace Lin
"It quickly became clear to me that mutability has these twinklings of joy, sometimes ecstasy, which comes through in the poems, I think."
From The Guardian ● Jan. 27, 2011
But nearer and nearer, low-creeping along, came mists and vapors, a thousand; spotted with twinklings of Will-o-Wisps from neighboring shores.
From Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II by Melville, Herman
It is also observable, that those bright scintillations neer the Horizon, are not by much so quick and sudden in their consecutions of one another, as the nimbler twinklings of Stars neerer the Zenith.
From Micrographia Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses with Observations and Inquiries Thereupon by Hooke, Robert
These twinklings and reflections and re-reflections did not change their position; but there was one gleam that had motion.
From Widdershins by Onions, Oliver [pseud.]
I know some lovelorn hearts that beat In time to moonbeam twinklings fleet, That dance and glance like jewels there, Emblazoning the raven hair!
From The Two Vanrevels by Tarkington, Booth
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
