'Scintillate' is Latin for 'to sparkle' — from 'scintilla' (a spark). Wit that flashes.
To emit flashes of light; to sparkle or twinkle. Figuratively: to be brilliantly and excitingly clever or skillful.
From Proto-Indo-European *skey- or a related root for gleaming and cutting, via Latin scintilla ("a spark, a small particle of fire") -> scintillare ("to sparkle, to emit sparks") -> English scintillate (17th century). Latin scintilla may be related to the PIE root for cutting and gleaming (as sparks are cut from flint) or to a separate Italic root; its exact PIE ancestry is debated. Latin scintilla also gave the English word scintilla meaning "a tiny trace" — preserving the original sense of a minute spark. Scintillare -> Late Latin scintillatio ("a sparkling") -> English
The English word 'scintilla' — meaning a tiny trace or amount ('not a scintilla of evidence') — comes directly from the Latin word for 'spark.' The metaphor is perfect: a spark is the smallest possible manifestation of fire, so a scintilla of something is the smallest possible trace of it. In particle physics, a 'scintillation detector' works by detecting the tiny flashes of light produced
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