glittering

adjective

glit·​ter·​ing ˈgli-tə-riŋ 

1

a

: shining with many bright points of light

Every few days a little glittering aeroplane appeared in the sky among the clouds and the circling hawks.

—Doris Lessing

And where the water had been trickling over and spurting through the dam there was now a glittering wall of icicles …

—C. S. Lewis

b

: shining with strong emotion

… after being misdirected almost consistently, she goes out in glory, with glittering eyes and a lewd smile.

—Pauline Kael

2

: brilliantly or showily impressive : dazzling

a glittering career

… the company today caters a glittering array of premiere social and corporate galas, from Poughkeepsie to Palm Beach.

—Robert Masello

also : superficially attractive or exciting

… they left behind the glittering social life of Orlando …

—Douglas Frantz et al.

glitteringly

ˈgli-tə-riŋ-lē 

adverb

His libretto is very bare, a skeleton of short, clear phrases on to which he has grafted slivers of music glitteringly alive thanks to his fine ear for sound.

—Richard Fairman

Examples of glittering in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Outside of the emotional rollercoaster of Keisha and Justin’s romance, the series offers generous and glittering depictions of family, friendship and young adulthood. —Aramide Tinubu, Variety, 8 May 2025

Leave it to Cartier to make the night’s most glittering party feel like an intimate encore. —Ian Malone, Vogue, 6 May 2025

Photo: Google Maps Another theory: The glittering Emmys hardly distract from $6.495 million’s worth of truly great bones. —Adriane Quinlan, Curbed, 2 May 2025

Nearly the entire musical, which is now being revived at Lincoln Center, therefore unfolds with our hero stuck fast inside one of the earth’s narrow pockets, his dwindling awareness reaching out toward the glittering, subterranean volumes all around him. —Helen Shaw, New Yorker, 28 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Rhymes for glittering

• littering
• skittering
• twittering