glimpseverb/ˈɡlɪm(p)s/

• 1

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

  • 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; […]
  • 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.
• 2

  To perceive (something intangible) briefly and incompletely.

  • I have only begun to glimpse the magnitude of the problem.
  • What memories? / The pure love thoughts and who may know / Thou glimpsest from the long ago?
• 3

  Chiefly followed by at or upon: to look at briefly and incompletely; to glance.

  • The door always opens directly into the kitchen, without any vestibule; and, glimpsing in, you see that a cottager's life must be the very plainest and homeliest that ever was lived by men and women.
• 4

  To shine with a faint, unsteady light; to glimmer, to shimmer.

  • O Lothſome place where I / Haue ſene and herd my dere / When in my hart her eye / Hath made her thought appere / By glimſing with ſuch grace / As fortune it ne would, / That laſten any ſpace, / Betwene vs lenger ſhould.
  • [O]ur curious yeares can finde / The chriſtal glas, vvhich glimſeth braue & bright, / And ſhevves the thing, much better than it is, / Beguylde vvith foyles, of ſundry ſubtil ſights, / So that they ſeeme, and couet not to be.
• 5

  archaicTo appear or start to appear, especially faintly or unclearly; to dawn.

  • Straitvvaies on heapes the thronging cloudes ariſe, / As though the heauen vvere angry vvith the night, / Deformed ſhadovves, glimpſing in his ſight / As darkenes, for it vvould more darkened be, / Through thoſe poore crannies forcde it ſelfe to ſee.
• 6

  rareSometimes followed by out: to provide a brief and incomplete look.

glimpsenoun/ˈɡlɪm(p)s/

• 1

  Chiefly followed by of: a brief and incomplete look.

  • I only got a glimpse of the car, so I can tell you the colour but not the registration number.
  • [T]he Baſilike, whoſe eyes procure delight to the looker at the firſt glymſe, and death at the ſecond glaunce.
• 2

  archaicA brief, sudden flash of light; a glimmer.

  • [W]hat may this meane, / That thou, dead corſe, againe in compleate ſteele, / Reuiſſits thus the glimſes of the Moone, / Making night hideous, and vve fooles of nature, / So horridely to ſhake our diſpoſition, / VVith thoughts beyond the reaches of our ſoules?
  • Sunk in his [Despair's] skull, his ſtaring eyes did glovve, / That made him deadly looke, their glimpſe did ſhovve / Like Cockatrices eyes, that ſparks of poyſon throvve.
• 3

  A faint or imprecise idea; an inkling.

  • Every surmise and vaticination of the mind is entitled to a certain respect, and we learn to prefer imperfect theories, and sentences, which contain glimpses of truth, to digested systems which have no one valuable suggestion.
  • Let there be thistles, there are grapes; / If old things, there are new; / Ten thousand broken lights and shapes, / Yet glimpses of the true.
• 4

  rareA brief, unspecified amount of time; a moment.

  • […] Alwin smiled, / When aught that from his young lips archly fell / The gloomy film from Harold's eye beguiled; / And pleased for a glimpse appeared the woeful Childe.
• 5

  obsoleteA faint (and often temporary) appearance; a tinge.

  • Reuiued with a glimſe of grace old ſorowes to let fal, / The hidden ſtraines I know and ſecret ſnares of loue: / How ſoone a loke wil print a thought, that neuer may remoue.
  • [T]here is no man hath a vertue, that he hath not a glimpſe of, nor any mã [man] an attaint, but he carries ſome ſtain of it.