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Shine vs Dazzle - What's the difference?

shine | dazzle |

Dazzle is a synonym of shine.



In intransitive terms the difference between shine and dazzle

is that shine is to be immediately apparent while dazzle is to be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.

In transitive terms the difference between shine and dazzle

is that shine is to cause (something) to shine; put a shine on (something); polish (something) while dazzle is to confuse the sight of by means of excessive brightness.

shine

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) shinen, schinen (preterite schon, past participle schinen), from (etyl) . Cognate with West Frisian skine, skyne, Low German schienen, Dutch schijnen, German scheinen, Danish skinne, Swedish skina. In Middle English the most standard forms are[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/m/mec/med-idx?type=id&id=MED39953]: * present: sh?nen * simple past: (singular) sh?ne'', (plural) ''sh?neden * past participle: sh?ned The form sh?ned(e)'' had already appeared as an alternative past singular at this time, although only in Northern English usage. There is no recorded use of ''sh?ne as an alternative past participle in Middle English.

Verb

  • To emit light.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=20 citation , passage=‘No. I only opened the door a foot and put my head in. The street lamps shine into that room. I could see him. He was all right. Sleeping like a great grampus. Poor, poor chap.’}}
  • To reflect light.
  • To distinguish oneself; to excel.
  • * 1867 , Frederick William Robinson, No Man's Friend , Harper & Brothers, page 91:
  • “ I was grateful to you for giving him a year’s schooling—where he shined' at it—and for putting him as a clerk in your counting-house, where he ' shined still more.”
  • * '>citation
  • It prompted an exchange of substitutions as Jermain Defoe replaced Palacios and Javier Hernandez came on for Berbatov, who had failed to shine against his former club.
  • To be effulgent in splendour or beauty.
  • * Spenser
  • So proud she shined in her princely state.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • Once brightest shined this child of heat and air.
  • To be eminent, conspicuous, or distinguished; to exhibit brilliant intellectual powers.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • Few are qualified to shine in company; but it in most men's power to be agreeable.
  • To be immediately apparent.
  • To create light with (a flashlight, lamp, torch, or similar).
  • * 2007 , David Lynn Goleman, Legend: An Event Group Thriller , St. Martin’s Press (2008), ISBN 978-0-312-94595-7, page 318:
  • As Jenks shined the large spotlight on the water, he saw a few bubbles and four long wakes leading away from an expanding circle of blood.
  • To cause to shine, as a light.
  • * (Francis Bacon)
  • He [God] doth not rain wealth, nor shine honour and virtues, upon men equally.
  • (US) To make bright; to cause to shine by reflected light.
  • (Bartlett)
    Synonyms
    * (to emit light) beam, glow, radiate * (to reflect light) gleam, glint, glisten, glitter, reflect * (to distinguish oneself) excel * (to make smooth and shiny by rubbing) wax, buff, polish, furbish, burnish
    Coordinate terms
    * (to emit light) beam, flash, glare, glimmer, shimmer, twinkle
    Derived terms
    * beshine * rise and shine * take a shine to

    Noun

    (-)
  • Brightness from a source of light.
  • * Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • the distant shine of the celestial city
  • Brightness from reflected light.
  • Excellence in quality or appearance.
  • Shoeshine.
  • Sunshine.
  • * Dryden
  • be it fair or foul, or rain or shine
  • (slang) Moonshine.
  • (cricket) The amount of shininess on a cricket ball, or on each side of the ball.
  • (slang) A liking for a person; a fancy.
  • She's certainly taken a shine to you.
  • (archaic, slang) A caper; an antic; a row.
  • Synonyms
    * (brightness from a source of light) effulgence, radiance, radiancy, refulgence, refulgency * (brightness from reflected light) luster * (excellence in quality or appearance) brilliance, splendor * (shoeshine) See shoeshine * (sunshine) See sunshine * See moonshine
    Derived terms
    * come rain or shine * fireshine * shimmer * shiner * shininess * shiny * spitshine

    Etymology 2

    From the noun (shine), or perhaps continuing (etyl) schinen (preterite schinede, past participle schined), from (etyl) .

    Verb

    (shin)
  • To cause (something) to shine; put a shine on (something); polish (something).
  • He shined my shoes until they were polished smooth and gleaming.
  • (cricket) To polish a cricket ball using saliva and one’s clothing.
  • Synonyms
    * (to polish) polish, smooth, smoothen

    dazzle

    English

    Verb

    (dazzl)
  • To confuse the sight of by means of excessive brightness.
  • Dazzled by the headlights of the lorry, the deer stopped in the middle of the street.
  • * Milton
  • Those heavenly shapes / Will dazzle now the earthly, with their blaze / Insufferably bright.
  • * Sir H. Taylor
  • An unreflected light did never yet / Dazzle the vision feminine.
  • (figuratively) To render incapable of thinking clearly; to overwhelm with showiness or brilliance.
  • The delegates were dazzled by the originality of his arguments.
  • To be overpowered by light; to be confused by excess of brightness.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • An overlight maketh the eyes dazzle .
  • * Dryden
  • I dare not trust these eyes; / They dance in mists, and dazzle with surprise.

    Derived terms

    * dazzler * dazzlement

    Noun

    (s)
  • A light of dazzling brilliancy.
  • (uncommon) A herd of zebra.
  • * 1958', Laurens Van der Post, ''The lost world of the Kalahari: with the great and the little memory'' (' 1998 David Coulson edition):
  • We were trying to stalk a dazzle of zebra which flashed in and out of a long strip of green and yellow fever trees, with an ostrich, its feathers flared like a ballet skirt around its dancing legs, on their flank, when suddenly
  • * 2009 , Darren Paul Shearer, In You God Trusts , page 176:
  • Zebras move in herds which are known as "dazzles." When a lion approaches a dazzle of zebras during its hunt,
  • * 2010 , Douglas Rogers, The Last Resort: A Memoir of Mischief and Mayhem on a Family Farm in Africa , page 22:
  • I reached the lodge as a dazzle of zebras trotted across the dirt road into thorny scrub by the game fence, and a lone kudu gazed up at me from the short grass near the swimming pool.

    Synonyms

    * herd