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Twinkle vs Gaze - What's the difference?

twinkle | gaze |

As verbs the difference between twinkle and gaze

is that twinkle is to shine with a flickering light; to glimmer while gaze is to stare intently or earnestly.

As nouns the difference between twinkle and gaze

is that twinkle is a sparkle or glimmer of light while gaze is a fixed look; a look of eagerness, wonder, or admiration; a continued look of attention.

twinkle

English

Verb

(en-verb)
  • (of a source of light) to shine with a flickering light; to glimmer
    • We could see the lights of the village twinkling in the distance.
  • * Sir Isaac Newton
    • These stars do not twinkle when viewed through telescopes that have large apertures.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • The western sky twinkled with stars.
  • (chiefly, of eyes) to be bright with delight
    • His shrewd little eyes twinkled roguishly.
  • to bat, blink or wink the eyes
  • * Mrs. Juliet M. Hueffer Soskice, "Reminiscences of an Artist's Granddaughter",
    • She smiled and gave a little nod and twinkled her eyes
  • * L'Estrange
    • The owl fell a moping and twinkling .
  • to flit to and fro
  • * Dorothy Gilman, "Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle"
    • A butterfly twinkled among the vines

    Synonyms

    * glimmer * scintillate * wink

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • a sparkle or glimmer of light
  • * Robert De Beaugrande, "Text, Discourse, and Process",
    • Soon the rocket was out of sight, and the flame was only seen as a tiny twinkle of light.
  • a sparkle of delight in the eyes.
    • He was a rotund, jolly man with a twinkle in his eye.
  • a flitting movement
  • * James Russell Lowell, "Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell",
    • I saw the twinkle of white feet,

    gaze

    English

    Verb

    (gaz)
  • To stare intently or earnestly.
  • * 1922 , (James Joyce), Chapter 13
    • Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see.
    In fact, for Antonioni this gazing is probably the most fundamental of all cognitive activities ... (from Thinking in the Absence of Image)
  • * Bible, Acts i. 11
    • Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?
  • (poetic) To stare at.
  • * 1667': Strait toward Heav'n my wondring Eyes I turnd, / And '''gaz'd a while the ample Skie — John Milton, ''Paradise Lost (book VIII)

    • Synonyms

    * gape, stare, look

    Troponyms

    * (to stare intently) ogle

    Derived terms

    * (l)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A fixed look; a look of eagerness, wonder, or admiration; a continued look of attention.
  • *
  • *:Captain Edward Carlisle, soldier as he was, martinet as he was, felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze , her alluring smile; he could not tell what this prisoner might do.
  • (lb) The object gazed on.
  • *(John Milton) (1608-1674)
  • *:made of my enemies the scorn and gaze
  • In Lacanian psychoanalysis, the relationship of the subject with the desire to look and awareness that one can be viewed.
  • *2003 , Amelia Jones, The feminism and visual culture reader , p.35:
  • *:She counters the tendency to focus on critical strategies of resisting the male gaze , raising the issue of the female spectator.

    • Derived terms

    * (l)

    References

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