scintillate
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ˈsɪntɪleɪt/
  • (GA) IPA: /ˈsɪntəleɪt/
Verb

scintillate (scintillates, present participle scintillating; past and past participle scintillated)

  1. (intransitive) To give off sparks; to shine as if emanating sparks; to twinkle or glow.
    1. (astronomy) Of a star or other celestial body: to vary rapidly in brightness; to twinkle.
    2. (nuclear physics) Especially of a phosphor: to emit a flash of light upon absorbing ionizing radiation.
  2. (transitive, now rare) To throw off like sparks.
    • 1857, Anthony Trollope, “Mr. Arabin”, in Barchester Towers: In Three Volumes, London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans & Roberts, OCLC 911659634 ↗; republished as Barchester Towers. [...] In Two Volumes (Hand and Pocket Library; II), volume I, New York, N.Y.: Dick & Fitzgerald, 18 Ann Street, [1860], OCLC 863553483 ↗, page 201 ↗:
      As a boy young Arabin took up the cudgels on the side of the Tractarians, and at Oxford he sat for a while at the feet of the great [John Henry] Newman. To this cause he lent all his faculties. For it he concocted verses, for it he made speeches, for it he scintillated the brightest sparks of his quiet wit.
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