gloss
/ɡlɔs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.47 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
Used in a phrasal verb: gloss over (“to cover up a mistake or crime, to treat something with less care than it deserves”).
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "."
- "To me more dear, congenial to my heart, / One native charm than all the gloss of art."
- "Hodgson may now have to bring in James Milner on the left and, on that basis, a certain amount of gloss was taken off a night on which Welbeck scored twice but barely celebrated either before leaving the pitch angrily complaining to the Slovakian referee."
- "You have the art to gloss the foulest cause."
- "All this, without a gloss or comment, / He would unriddle in a moment."
- "He was a prolific annotator - writing around fifty thousand glosses in as many as twenty manuscripts."
Etymology
Probably from a North Germanic language, compare Icelandic glossi (“spark, flame”), glossa (“to flame”); or perhaps from dialectal Dutch gloos (“a glow, flare”), related to West Frisian gloeze (“a glow”), Middle Low German glȫsen (“to smoulder, glow”), German glosen (“to smoulder”); ultimately from Proto-Germanic *glus- (“to glow, shine”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰel- (“to flourish; be green or yellow”). More at glow.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ɡlɔs/
- British English: /ɡlɒs/