Glimmace

Definition of glimmace:

A sensory experience that starts out as carrying one emotional impact but ends with the opposite impact. The effect of a glimmace is usually accidental and unintended. The taste of a sugar coated pill is one example.

A photograph of a beautiful woman that on second glance seems strained and harsh and ugly is another.

We tend to associate glimmaces with visual stimuli, such as abstract art, but examples exist in all of the senses.

The definition could be carried to verbal or literal ironies, but by keeping the focus on a sensate nature, the word succeeds in connoting a fleeting, unexpected change. Some optical illusions are borderline glimmaces, but creating a glimmace is never as strong as discovering one by accident. In some cases, poetry can succeed in creating a very sensual yet word-created glimmace.