Glimmering means shining with a soft, flickering, or unsteady light. When moonlight reflects off a lake at night, you might see glimmering light dancing across the water's surface. A candle flame glimmers as it wavers in the breeze. Stars glimmer in the night sky, their light seeming to pulse and shift as you watch them.

The word captures something between steady brightness and complete darkness: a glimmering light is visible but gentle, often moving or changing. Think of how sequins on a costume catch the light as someone moves, or how a distant campfire glimmers through the trees.

Glimmering can also describe something that appears faintly or incompletely, like an idea that's just beginning to form. When you have a glimmer of understanding about a tricky math problem, you're starting to see how to solve it, even though the complete solution isn't clear yet. A glimmer of hope means just a small amount of hope, barely visible but still there, like a distant light in the darkness showing you which way to go.