scintillate

1. (intransitive) To give off sparks; to shine as if emanating sparks; to twinkle or glow.Examples: "Much interest appears to have been lately excited in England by Dr. Clarke's Experiments on the Blow-pipe, and the dangers of explosion attempted to be guarded against, by various contrivances. The following letter inserted in the Philosophical Magazine for December 1816, will show the importance attached to this interesting application of the gases in promoting fusion. […] 1. Platinum as thick as a stocking wire was instantly fused, scintillated, and fell into a large globule. 2. Palladium fused instantly and slightly scintillated."; "In fact, the whole place scintillated. Madame scintillated with combs and finery and jewellery behind the counter, mirrors innumerable scintillated behind Madame, whilst the ragtime scintillated from (as I discovered) a pianola […]"; "The streets of Rangoon, wallowing in sun, flashed and scintillated with strolling crowds, skirted in their best silk longyis."intransitive

2. (astronomy) Of a star or other celestial body: to vary rapidly in brightness; to twinkle.Examples: "Do the stars scintillate at all altitudes? Is there any altitude at which it ceases to manifest itself? At Morges the stars in general scintillate at all altitudes, although feebly near the zenith; but on the nights when the scintillation is very faint, it ceases completely at a zenith distance of 45°."; "It is generally believed that the planets do not scintillate at all, or scarcely at all. Nevertheless I have often observed a sensible scintillation of Venus and Mars, and in a few rare cases I have also observed a slight scintillation of Jupiter and Saturn. […] I would therefore call the attention of observers who may find themselves under atmospherical conditions of a nature to render the general scintillation very strong, to this point, as they might perhaps be able to ascertain whether Jupiter and Saturn ever sensibly scintillate."; "A star, or other point-like source, viewed through the atmosphere can be seen by eye to fluctuate in intensity. An extended object has a brightness distribution that is convolved with the seeing disk. That is, the object's brightness distribution can be thought of as a series of point sources of different brightness, each one 'blurred' to the size of the seeing disk and each seeing disk is scintillating. If the eye could spatially resolve each of these points, it would see brightness fluctuations across a source. However, the resolution of the human eye (≈ 1′) is much poorer than the seeing (≈ 1″). […] The result is that the eye perceives an extended source as steadily shining."

3. (nuclear physics) Especially of a phosphor: to emit a flash of light upon absorbing ionizing radiation.

4. (intransitive) To dazzle or to impress.intransitive

5. (transitive, now rare) To throw off like sparks.Examples: "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."; "[T]he adrenaline in my veins scintillated the surface of my skin sending chills all over my body."; "It [the wind] rushed through the resonant stone horns and across the vibrating vines, washed though the swaying branches and leaves of the trees and scintillated the expectant flowers, all of which began to pulsate together in a tuneful but almost discordant way until the cacophonous prelude was overcome with high joyful sounds."archaictransitive