glimpse

Etymology

From earlier glimse, from Middle English glimsen (“to glisten, be dazzling, glance with the eyes”), akin to Middle High German glimsen (“to glow, smoulder”). Compare also Middle Dutch glinsen, Middle Low German glinsen, glintzen, glinzen (“to shine, shimmer”), Middle High German glinsen (“to shine, glimmer”), Dutch glinsteren (“to glitter, sparkle, shimmer, glint, glance”), Dutch glimmen (“to shine, gleam”).

noun

1. A brief look, glance, or peek.
   I only got a glimpse of the car, so I can tell you the colour but not the registration number.
   Here hid by shrub-wood, there by glimpses seen. 1798, Samuel Rogers, An Epistle to a Friend
   An opening sequence, featuring a de-aged Ford playing a younger Indy, is a bold and nostalgic gambit, offering a glimpse of what you've missed. 29 June 2023, City AM, London, page 18, column 2
2. (archaic) A sudden flash, a glimmer.
3. (figurative) A faint idea; an inkling.

verb

1. (transitive) To see or view briefly or incompletely.
   I have only begun to glimpse the magnitude of the problem.
   A hope that, glimpsed, must fade; / ⁠A form, illusion made, / That, vanishing, shall come no more again! 1916, Florence Earle Coates, “Cendrillon”, in Poems, volume I
   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, H. P. Lovecraft, chapter //dummy.host/index.php?title=s%3Aen%3AThe+Whisperer+in+Darkness%2FChapter+8 8, in The Whisperer in Darkness
2. (intransitive) To appear by glimpses.