shine.
To emit or reflect light so as to glow.
Meaning & usage
To emit or reflect light so as to glow.
To reflect light.
To distinguish oneself; to excel.
My nephew tried other sports before deciding on football, which he shone at right away, quickly becoming the star of his school team.
To be effulgent in splendour or beauty.
To be eminent, conspicuous, or distinguished; to exhibit brilliant intellectual powers.
To be immediately apparent.
To create light with (a flashlight, lamp, torch, or similar).
I shone my light into the darkness to see what was making the noise.
To cause to shine, as a light or by reflected light.
in hunting, to shine the eyes of a deer at night by throwing a light on them
Where this word comes from
From Middle English shinen, schinen (preterite schon, past participle schinen), from Old English sċīnan (“to shine, flash; be resplendent”; preterite sċān, past participle sċinen), from Proto-West Germanic *skīnan (“to shine”), from Proto-Germanic *skīnaną (“to shine”). Cognate with Dutch schijnen, German scheinen, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål skinne, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish skina, Faroese and Icelandic skína.
Brightness from a source of light.
Brightness from reflected light.
Excellence in quality or appearance; splendour.
Shoeshine.
Sunshine (typically in contrast with rain).
Moonshine; an illicitly brewed alcoholic drink.
A black person.
The amount of shininess on a cricket ball, or on each side of the ball.
A liking for a person; a fancy.
She's certainly taken a shine to you.
A caper; an antic; a row.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English shinen, schinen (preterite schon, past participle schinen), from Old English sċīnan (“to shine, flash; be resplendent”; preterite sċān, past participle sċinen), from Proto-West Germanic *skīnan (“to shine”), from Proto-Germanic *skīnaną (“to shine”). Cognate with Dutch schijnen, German scheinen, Danish and Norwegian Bokmål skinne, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish skina, Faroese and Icelandic skína.
To cause (something) to be smooth and shiny by rubbing; put a shine on (something); polish (something).
He shined my shoes until they were polished smooth and gleaming.
To polish a cricket ball using saliva and one’s clothing.
Where this word comes from
From the noun shine, or perhaps continuing Middle English schinen in its causative uses, from Old English scīn (“brightness, shine”), and also Middle English schenen, from Old English scǣnan (“to render brilliant, make shine”), from Proto-Germanic *skainijaną, causative of *skīnaną (“to shine”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.