gloss.
A surface shine or luster.
Meaning & usage
A surface shine or luster.
A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.
Where this word comes from
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.
To give a gloss or sheen to.
To make (something) attractive by deception
To become shiny.
Used in a phrasal verb: gloss over (“to cover up a mistake or crime, to treat something with less care than it deserves”).
Where this word comes from
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.
A brief explanatory note or translation of a foreign, archaic, technical, difficult, complex, or uncommon expression, inserted after the original, in the margin of a document, or between lines of a text.
Synonym of glossary, a collection of such notes.
An expression requiring such explanatory treatment.
An extensive commentary on some text.
An interpretation by a court of a specific point within a statute or case law.
A definition or explanation of a word sense.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English glosse, alteration of glose, from Old French glose, from Late Latin glōssa (“obsolete or foreign word requiring explanation”), from Ancient Greek γλῶσσα (glôssa, “language”). Doublet of glossa and gloze.
To add a gloss to (a text).
Where this word comes from
An alteration of Middle English glosen after Etymology 2, from Old French gloser; compare Medieval Latin glossāre.
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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.