Other forms: glittering, glitters, glittered
To glitter is to shine with many small flashes. Frost on a road, a chandelier, sequins under a light.
The many separate points of light are what distinguish it from a steady gleam. It suits jewellery, ice and water, and eyes glitter in fiction when somebody is excited or dangerous. As a noun, glitter is the tiny plastic sparkle used in crafts that gets into everything and never leaves. The proverb warns that all that glitters is not gold, which is a slight misquotation of Shakespeare's glisters.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰley-
Proto-Germanic
*glitrōną — to glitter
Old Norse
glitra
Middle English
gliteren
English, today
glitter
From Middle English gliteren, from Old Norse glitra, from Proto-Germanic glitrōną (“to glitter”), from Proto-Indo-European ǵʰley-.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA