the.com/twinkle
starlight stuttering through the atmosphere, a cosmic flicker that means the air is the one moving.
means To shine with a quick, flickering, intermittent light — or, of an eye, to gleam with amusement or delight.
from From Old English 'twinclian,' to wink or blink, a frequentative form built on a root meaning to flicker or vanish (a cousin of 'twitch' and the dialect 'twink,' a blink of an eye). The frequentative ending '-le' is the grammar of repetition itself — 'sparkle,' 'crinkle,' 'twinkle' — so the word's very shape stutters, doing the rapid on-off it names. The sense of a brightly amused eye is old too, the gleam treated as a kind of light winking on and off.
- why it twinkles
- turbulent air bends incoming starlight constantly
- planets don't
- closer disks resist atmospheric flicker, shining steady
- space view
- astronauts see zero twinkle above the atmosphere
- word origin
- old english twinclian, to wink or blink
- scientific name
- astronomers call it stellar scintillation
twinkle twinkle little star — 1806 poem by jane taylor, one of the most famous nursery rhymes in english
twinkle toes — 1921 silent film starring mary pickford, first major motion picture with the phrase