gloss

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɡlɒs/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ɡlɔs/, /ɡlɑs/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒs

From a Germanic language, perhaps Middle High German, Dutch or Icelandic; compare glossi (“a blaze”).

gloss (usually uncountable, plural glosses)

1. A surface shine or luster/lustre
2. (figuratively) A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance
   • Goldsmith

     To me more dear, congenial to my heart, / One native charm than all the gloss of art.

   • 2013, Daniel Taylor, Danny Welbeck leads England's rout of Moldova but hit by Ukraine ban (in The Guardian, 6 September 2013)

     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.

• (surface shine): brilliance, gleam, luster/lustre, sheen, shine
• (superficially or deceptively attractive appearance): façade, front, veneer

• glossy
• glossary

gloss (third-person singular simple present glosses, present participle glossing, simple past and past participle glossed)

1. (transitive) To give a gloss or sheen to.
2. (transitive) To make (something) attractive by deception
   • (Can we date this quote?) Philips

     You have the art to gloss the foulest cause.

3. (intransitive) To become shiny.

• (give a gloss or sheen to): polish, shine
• (make (something) attractive by deception):
• (become shiny):

From Middle English glosse, glose, from Late Latin glossa (“obsolete or foreign word requiring explanation”), from Ancient Greek γλῶσσα (glôssa, “language”).

gloss (plural glosses)

1. (countable) 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.
   • Hudibras

     All this, without a gloss or comment, / He would unriddle in a moment.

2. (countable) A glossary; a collection of such notes.
3. (countable, obsolete) An expression requiring such explanatory treatment.
4. (countable) An extensive commentary on some text.
5. (countable) A brief explanation in speech or in a written work, including a synonym used with the intent of indicating the meaning of the word to which it is applied
6. (countable, law, US) An interpretation by a court of specific point within a statute or case law
   • 2007 Bruce R. Hopkins. The law of tax-exempt organizations. page 76

     Judicial Gloss on Test [section title]

   • 1979 American Bar Foundation. Annotated code of professional responsibility. page ix

     This volume is thus not a narrowly defined treatment of the Code of Professional Responsibility but rather represents a "common law" gloss on it.

• (brief explanatory note or translation of a difficult or complex expression): explanation, note
• (glossary): glossary, lexicon
• (extensive commentary on some text): commentary, discourse, discussion

• beglossed

• glossary

gloss (third-person singular simple present glosses, present participle glossing, simple past and past participle glossed)

1. (transitive) To add a gloss to (a text).

• (add a gloss to): annotate, mark up

• gloss over

• gloss in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• gloss in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• gloss at OneLook Dictionary Search

• slogs

gloss m (uncountable)

1. lip gloss (cosmetic product)