glitterance

English

Etymology

glitter +‎ -ance. Coined by Robert Southey in his 1801 Thalaba the Destroyer.

Noun

glitterance (plural glitterances)

1. (poetic) a glittering, a sparkling with light
   • 1801, Robert Southey, “(please specify the page)”, in Thalaba the Destroyer, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: […] [F]or T[homas] N[orton] Longman and O[wen] Rees, […], by Biggs and Cottle, […], →OCLC:

     And now had Thalaba
     Perform’d his last ablutions, and he stood
     And gaz’d upon the little boat […]
     Till, from the glitterance of the sunny main,
     He turn’d his aching eyes,
     And then upon the beach he laid him down,
     And watch’d the rising tide.

   • 1814, Dante Alighieri, trans. Henry Francis Cary, The Divine Comedy, canto 21:

     As the rooks, at dawn of day,
     Bestirring them to dry their feathers chill,
     Some speed their way a-field; and homeward some,
     Returning, cross their flight; while some abide,
     And wheel around their airy lodge: so seem’d
     That glitterance, wafted on alternate wing,
     As upon certain stair it came, and clash’d
     Its shining.

   • 1830, “The Pentagonals”, in The National Magazine, volume 1, number 1, page 481:

     Magnificent as the archangel’s glance
     Turning a farewell look on primal earth
     Of light ineffable, ere he stretched forth
     His crimson pinions o’er the wide expanse
     Of young creation, sleeping in the trance
     That love had pour’d around its innocent birth,
     When seraphs mingled in its infant mirth,
     Slow sinks the Autumn sunset’s glitterance!
     O the brave architecture of the skies! […]
     Very well indeed, Harry, for an impromptu; glitterance is an ill phrase, a vile phrase—Peter, for the sake of the metre; however——

Related terms

• glitterant