Definition

1. Verb:
   • To emit flashes of light; to sparkle or twinkle: To shine with a flickering or gleaming light, often in small, bright points.
   • To be brilliant, lively, or witty: To be intellectually stimulating or to exhibit great liveliness and brilliance in conversation or performance.
   • Physics: To fluoresce momentarily: To emit a brief flash of light when struck by a charged particle or high-energy photon.

Examples of Usage

• Verb:
  • The stars scintillate in the clear night sky.
  • Her wit never failed to scintillate, making every conversation a delight.
  • The diamond scintillated under the bright lights.
  • In the experiment, the material was observed to scintillate when hit by radiation.

Advanced Usage

• "to scintillate with": to be full of or characterized by a particular quality, often brilliance or excitement.
  • His eyes scintillated with intelligence and humor.
• Used figuratively to describe performances or displays of great skill and energy.
  • The pianist's fingers scintillated across the keys.

Variants and Related Words

• Scintillation (n): The act of scintillating; a flash of light.
  • The scintillation of the gemstones was breathtaking.
• Scintillating (adj): Sparkling or shining brightly; brilliantly and excitingly clever or skillful.
  • We had a scintillating discussion about philosophy.

Synonyms

• Sparkle: To shine with bright points of light.
• Twinkle: To shine with a light that flickers rapidly.
• Glisten: To shine with a sparkling light, often from a wet surface.
• Coruscate: To flash or sparkle. (A more literary synonym).

Related Phrasal Verbs

(This word does not commonly form phrasal verbs.)

Related Idioms

(There are no common idioms directly using the word "scintillate.")

Verb

1. be lively or brilliant or exhibit virtuosity
   • The musical performance sparkled
   • A scintillating conversation
   • his playing coruscated throughout the concert hall
2. physics: fluoresce momentarily when struck by a charged particle or high-energy photon
   • the phosphor fluoresced
3. emit or reflect light in a flickering manner
   • Does a constellation twinkle more brightly than a single star?
4. reflect brightly
   • Unquarried marble sparkled on the hillside
5. give off
   • the substance scintillated sparks and flashes