35 uses
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Definition
a quick look or partial understanding
The exact meaning of glimpse can depend upon its context. For example:
- "I caught a glimpse of her when I was walking to class." — a very quick look
- "I glimpsed at the headlines." — looked quickly
- "Reading the book gave me a glimpse of the life of a devout Muslim immigrant in America." — a quick, incomplete view
- The rest of them were trying to do it surreptitiously, each attempting to catch a glimpse of the others without letting them catch his own glance.3.8 Part 3 Chapter 8 — The Egoist (1% in)
- She had caught a glimpse of another world and she knew that it existed somewhere, the world that had created trains, bridges, telegraph wires and signal lights winking in the night.1.3 Part 1 Chapter 3 — The Top and the Bottom (32% in)
- It was only in the first few years that she felt herself screaming silently, at times, for a glimpse of human ability, a single glimpse of clean, hard, radiant competence.1.3 Part 1 Chapter 3 — The Top and the Bottom (43% in)
- It was only in the first few years that she felt herself screaming silently, at times, for a glimpse of human ability, a single glimpse of clean, hard, radiant competence.1.3 Part 1 Chapter 3 — The Top and the Bottom (43% in)
- As men on a dark prairie liked to see the lighted windows of a train going past, her achievement, the sight of power and purpose that gave them reassurance in the midst of empty miles and night —so she wanted to feel it for a moment, a brief greeting, a single glimpse, just to wave her arm and say: Someone is going somewhere...... She started walking slowly, her hands in the pockets of her coat, the shadow of her slanting hat brim across her face.1.4 Part 1 Chapter 4 — The Immovable Movers (8% in)
- At times, catching a glimpse of Dagny's face, Mrs. Taggart caught an expression which she could not quite define: it was much more than gaiety, it was the look of such an untouched purity of enjoyment that she found it abnormal, too: no young girl could be so insensitive as to have discovered no sadness in life.1.5 Part 1 Chapter 5 — The Climax of the D'Anconias (36% in)
- A car flashed past them; she had a moment's glimpse of power-a smooth, confident motion and a shining body.1.7 Part 1 Chapter 7 — The Exploiters and the Exploited (22% in)
- The memory of that look remained in his mind, like a warning signal telling him that he had glimpsed an issue which he had to understand.1.7 Part 1 Chapter 7 — The Exploiters and the Exploited (86% in)
- Mr. Ward looked quickly away from him, but Rearden had caught a glimpse of his face.1.7 Part 1 Chapter 7 — The Exploiters and the Exploited (91% in)
- He caught a glimpse of his own figure: the tall body distorted by a sloppy, sagging posture, as if in deliberate negation of human grace, the thinning hair, the soft, sullen mouth.1.9 Part 1 Chapter 9 — The Sacred and the Profane (35% in)
- Days passed before she realized what it was that she missed most: a glimpse of fresh paint.1.9 Part 1 Chapter 9 — The Sacred and the Profane (74% in)
- Dr. Stadler could have regarded the sentence as conceivable, had it been uttered with hatred, envy or malice; but the absence of any such emotion, the casual ease of the voice, an ease suggesting a chuckle, hit him like a moment's glimpse of a realm that could not be taken as part of reality; the thing spreading down to his stomach was cold terror.2.1 Part 2 Chapter 1 — The Man Who Belonged on Earth (20% in)
- Rearden felt a strange excitement; he felt as if he were about to grasp something he had never understood, as if he were on the trail of some discovery still too distant to know, except that it had the most immense importance he had ever glimpsed.2.1 Part 2 Chapter 1 — The Man Who Belonged on Earth (68% in)
- He knew that these were the right steps down the trail he had glimpsed.2.1 Part 2 Chapter 1 — The Man Who Belonged on Earth (70% in)
- The sudden feeling that made Rearden lean forward in a posture of eager attentiveness, was the feeling that he was about to discover another step along his half glimpsed trail.2.3 Part 2 Chapter 3 — White Blackmail (32% in)
- He was certain that Francisco felt it, too, that he had been moved by the same impulse, that it was right to feel it, right for both of them to be what they were-he caught glimpses of a sweat-streaked face intent upon action, and it was the most joyous face he had ever seen.2.3 Part 2 Chapter 3 — White Blackmail (92% in)
- He remembered his brief glimpse-on that morning in the Wayne Falkland Hotel-of a flaw in her scheme of punishment, which he had not examined.2.4 Part 2 Chapter 4 — The Sanction of the Victim (10% in)
- Feeling nothing but the emptiness of wonder, he observed the thing which he had glimpsed briefly in the past and was now seeing in the full ugliness of its futility: the spectacle of pleas for pity delivered, in snarling hatred, as threats and as demands.2.5 Part 2 Chapter 5 — Account Overdrawn (93% in)
- He always waited to catch a glimpse of Rearden outside.2.6 Part 2 Chapter 6 — Miracle Metal (67% in)
- You've glimpsed too much, so you have to know this clearly.2.9 Part 2 Chapter 9 — The Face Without Pain or Fear or Guilt (18% in)
- She caught a glimpse of his face: he looked a little astonished and very amused.2.10 Part 2 Chapter 10 — The Sign of the Dollar (68% in)
- As the car went past him, she caught a glimpse of his face-and she jerked backward, her voice rising to a scream from the pain of the movement and from the shock of the sight: "Oh, stop!3.1 Part 3 Chapter 1 — Atlantis (14% in)
- He jerked his head to snap an order-she caught a glimpse of his profile-and she caught her breath.3.1 Part 3 Chapter 1 — Atlantis (44% in)
- You know, I never hoped to see any of you again, I wondered at times how much I'd give for just one more glimpse or one more word-and now-now this is like that dream you imagine in childhood, when you think that some day, in heaven, you will see those great departed whom you had not seen on earth, and you choose, from all the past centuries, the great men you would like to meet.3.1 Part 3 Chapter 1 — Atlantis (66% in)
- This was the question that had lashed her for weeks, but had not driven her to a glimpse of the answer.3.2 Part 3 Chapter 2 — The Utopia of Greed (80% in)
- Francisco was now silent, he was watching Galt intently, with a frown of wonder, not as if he had found an answer, but as if he had suddenly glimpsed a question.3.2 Part 3 Chapter 2 — The Utopia of Greed (85% in)
- When she raised her head, it seemed to her-that she caught a glimpse of him watching her with the uncertain, retreating, calculating look of a man whose trick has not worked.3.4 Part 3 Chapter 4 — Anti-Life (39% in)
- Her eyes were dark with the dangerous intensity of glimpsing her goal.3.4 Part 3 Chapter 4 — Anti-Life (47% in)
- The worst of the torture had been the moments when, walking down the street, she had caught a sudden glimpse of chestnut-gold, a glowing streak of hair among the heads of strangers, and had felt as if the city had vanished, as if nothing but the violent stillness within her were delaying the moment when she would rush to him and seize him; but that next moment had come as the sight of some meaningless face-and she had stood, not wishing to live through the following step, not wishing...3.4 Part 3 Chapter 4 — Anti-Life (52% in)
- His eyelids were drawing closed, but he caught a glimpse of her face leaning back unresistingly, her mouth swollen with revulsion.3.4 Part 3 Chapter 4 — Anti-Life (81% in)
- She went past the locked iron door where the remnant of his motor was still hidden, she did not stop, but a faint shudder was her answer to the sudden glimpse of the unity and logic in the events of the last two years.3.5 Part 3 Chapter 5 — Their Brothers' Keepers (87% in)
- ...I've watched you for ten years .... from here, from under the ground under your feet .... knowing every move you made in your office at the top of the building, but never seeing you, never enough .... ten years of nights, spent waiting to catch a glimpse of you, here, on the platforms, when you boarded a train...... Whenever the order came down to couple your car, I'd know of it and wait and see you come down the ramp, and wish you didn't walk so fast .... it was so much like you, that walk, I'd...3.5 Part 3 Chapter 5 — Their Brothers' Keepers (91% in)
- I caught a glimpse of him as he stood with his hand on the door of his car, his head lifted, I saw the brief flare of a smile under the slanting brim, a confident smile, impatient and a little amused.3.5 Part 3 Chapter 5 — Their Brothers' Keepers (94% in)
- It had taken one instant, but in the next his foot went down on the brake, tearing the engine to a stop: for in the moment when his headlights had swept the ravine, he had glimpsed an oblong shape, darker than the gray of the weeds on the slope, and it had seemed to him that a brief white blur had been a human hand waving for help.3.6 Part 3 Chapter 6 — The Concerto of Deliverance (71% in)
- "What's the matter with you?" gasped Mouch, catching a glimpse of Taggart's face while a current was twisting Galt's body: Taggart was staring at it intently, yet his eyes seemed glazed and dead, but around that inanimate stare the muscles of his face were pulled into an obscene caricature of enjoyment.3.9 Part 3 Chapter 9 — The Generator (82% in)
There are no more uses of "glimpse" in Atlas Shrugged.
Typical Usage
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