flickering
/ˈflɪkəɹɪŋ/adjective, noun, verb
flickering is an adjective meaning “shining unsteadily or varying rapidly in brightness (referring to a light or a source of light)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-L-I-C-K-E-R-I-N-G and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 1 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does flickering mean?
adjective
- 1
shining unsteadily or varying rapidly in brightness (referring to a light or a source of light)
noun
- 1
A short, uncertain burst.
Even after the acrimonious breakup, she still felt flickerings of love for him.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of flicker
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce flickering?
- /ˈflɪkəɹɪŋ/
Flickering has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-flickering.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of flickering
- flickerings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is flickering?
Flickering appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 29,270th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).