What does twinkle mean?

Definitions for twinkle
ˈtwɪŋ kəltwin·kle

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word twinkle.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. twinkle, scintillation, sparklingnoun

    a rapid change in brightness; a brief spark or flash

  2. sparkle, twinkle, spark, lightverb

    merriment expressed by a brightness or gleam or animation of countenance

    "he had a sparkle in his eye"; "there's a perpetual twinkle in his eyes"

  3. flash, blink, wink, twinkle, winkleverb

    gleam or glow intermittently

    "The lights were flashing"

  4. twinkle, winkle, scintillateverb

    emit or reflect light in a flickering manner

    "Does a constellation twinkle more brightly than a single star?"

Wiktionary

  1. twinklenoun

    a sparkle or glimmer of light

  2. twinklenoun

    a sparkle of delight in the eyes.

    He was a rotund, jolly man with a twinkle in his eye.

  3. twinklenoun

    a flitting movement

  4. twinkleverb

    to shine with a flickering light; to glimmer

  5. twinkleverb

    to be bright with delight

    His shrewd little eyes twinkled roguishly.

  6. twinkleverb

    to bat, blink or wink the eyes

  7. twinkleverb

    to flit to and fro

  8. Etymology: from twinclian

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. Twinkle, Twinklingnoun

    Etymology: from the verb.

    Suddenly, with twinkle of her eye,
    The damsel broke his misintended dart. Edmund Spenser.

    I come, I come; the least twinkle had brought me to thee. John Dryden, Don Sebastian.

    Money can thy wants at will supply,
    Shields, steeds, and arms, and all things for thee meet,
    It can pourvey in twinkling of an eye. Fairy Queen.

    These false beauties of the stage are no more lasting than a rainbow; when the actor gilds them no longer with his reflection, they vanish in a twinkling. Dryden.

    The action, passion, and manners of so many persons in a picture, are to be discerned in the twinkling of an eye, if the sight could travel over so many different objects all at once. Dryden.

  2. To Twinkleverb

    Etymology: twinclian , Saxon.

    At first I did adore a twinkling star,
    But now I worship a celestial sun. William Shakespeare.

    As plays the sun upon the glassey streams,
    Twinkling another counterfeited beam,
    So seems this gorgeous beauty. William Shakespeare.

    Some their forked tails stretch forth on high,
    And tear the twinkling stars from trembling sky. Edward Fairfax.

    God comprises all the goods we value in the creatures, as the sun doth the light that twinkles in the stars. Boyle.

    The star of love,
    That twinkles you to fair Almeyda’s bed. Dryden.

    Think you your new French proselytes are come
    To starve abroad, because they starv’d at home,
    Your benefices twinkl’d from afar. Dryden.

    So weak your charms, that like a winter’s night,
    Twinkling with stars, they freeze me while they light. Dryd.

    These stars do not twinkle when viewed through telescopes which have large apertures: for the rays of light which pass through divers parts of the aperture, tremble each of them apart; and by means of their various, and sometimes contrary tremors, fall at one and the same time upon different points in the bottom of the eye. Newton.

    The owl fell a moping and twinkling. Roger L'Estrange.

    His eyes will twinkle, and his tongue will roll,
    As tho’ he beck’ned, and call’d back his soul. John Donne.

ChatGPT

  1. twinkle

    Twinkle generally refers to a sparkling or shimmering quality, often involving light and brightness. This could refer to the flickering of stars in the night sky, the glimmer in someone's eyes, or subtle changes in intensity of light in general. It can also describe anything that conveys an impression of lively brightness or constantly changing aspects, often translating to a sense of wonder, magic, or enchantment. Twinkle is also used to acknowledge brilliance and may refer to a brief moment or an occasional occurrence.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Twinkleverb

    to open and shut the eye rapidly; to blink; to wink

  2. Twinkleverb

    to shine with an intermitted or a broken, quavering light; to flash at intervals; to sparkle; to scintillate

  3. Twinklenoun

    a closing or opening, or a quick motion, of the eye; a wink or sparkle of the eye

  4. Twinklenoun

    a brief flash or gleam, esp. when rapidly repeated

  5. Twinklenoun

    the time of a wink; a twinkling

Wikidata

  1. TWINKLE

    TWINKLE is a hypothetical integer factorization device described in 1999 by Adi Shamir and purported to be capable of factoring 512-bit integers. The name is an acronym of "The Weizmann Institute Key Locating Engine". It is also a pun on the twinkling LEDs used in the device. The goal of TWINKLE is to implement the sieving step of the Number Field Sieve algorithm, which is the fastest known algorithm for factoring large integers. The sieving step, at least for 512-bit and larger integers, is the most time consuming step of NFS. It involves testing a large set of numbers for B-'smoothness', i.e., absence of a prime factor greater than a specified bound B. What is remarkable about TWINKLE is that it is not a purely digital device. It gets its efficiency by eschewing binary arithmetic for an "optical" adder which can add hundreds of thousands of quantities in a single clock cycle. The key idea used is "time-space inversion". Conventional NFS sieving is carried out one prime at a time. For each prime, all the numbers to be tested for smoothness in the range under consideration which are divisible by that prime have their counter incremented by the logarithm of the prime. TWINKLE, on the other hand, works one candidate smooth number at a time. There is one LED corresponding to each prime smaller than B. At the time instant corresponding to X, the set of LEDs glowing corresponds to the set of primes that divide X. This can be accomplished by having the LED associated with the prime p glow once every p time instants. Further, the intensity of each LED is proportional to the logarithm of the corresponding prime. Thus, the total intensity equals the sum of the logarithms of all the prime factors of X smaller than B. This intensity is equal to the logarithm of X if and only if X is B-smooth.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Twinkle

    twing′kl, v.i. to blink: to shine with a trembling, sparkling light: to sparkle: to open and shut the eyes rapidly: to quiver.—ns. Twink′le, Twink′ling, a quick motion of the eye: the time occupied by a wink: an instant: the scintillation of the fixed stars; Twink′ler. [A.S. twinclian.]

Suggested Resources

  1. twinkle

    Song lyrics by twinkle -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by twinkle on the Lyrics.com website.

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Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of twinkle in Chaldean Numerology is: 8

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of twinkle in Pythagorean Numerology is: 4

Examples of twinkle in a Sentence

  1. Jay Leno:

    Dave is as quirky as they come, god bless him. He is having fun. When I see him, he still has that twinkle, and he still seems to be having fun with it. He doesn’t look like a depressed old guy.

  2. Debasish Mridha, M.D.:

    Your smile is the twinkle of happiness. Your heart is the source of kindness. Your presence is the source of joyfulness. Your thoughts are symbols of greatness.

  3. Michel Foucault:

    Chance does not speak essentially through words nor can it be seen in their convolution. It is the eruption of language, its sudden appearance. It's not a night twinkle with stars, an illuminated sleep, nor a drowsy vigil. It is the very edge of consciousness.

  4. Phil Brock:

    Pat had the ability to bring laughter and kindness to any role. The twinkle in his Irish eyes let you know that you were in on the joke.

  5. Robert Massey:

    Northern Hemisphere's dazzlingly obvious. Northern Hemisphere doesn't twinkle like a star but has a steady light that makes Northern Hemisphere easy to spot.

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Translations for twinkle

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"twinkle." Definitions.net. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Mar. 2024. <https://www.definitions.net/definition/twinkle>.

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