Sekirov Dictionary

gloss

UK /ɡlɒs/US /ɡlɔs/

noun 8
verb 5
forms 3
phrases 1

noun8

A surface shine or luster.
•
(figurative) A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.
- To me more dear, congenial to my heart, / One native charm than all the gloss of art. — 1770
•
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.
- All this, without a gloss or comment, / He would unriddle in a moment. — 1684
•
A definition or explanation of a word sense.
- Dictionary entries comprise two essential parts, the headword ('lemma') and the author's explanation ('gloss'). — 2011
An extensive commentary on some text.
•
(US) An interpretation by a court of a specific point within a statute or case law.
- This volume is thus not a narrowly defined treatment of the Code of Professional Responsibility but rather represents a "common law" gloss on it. — 1979
Synonym of glossary, a collection of such notes.
(no longer used) An expression requiring such explanatory treatment.

verb5

To give a gloss or sheen to.
Used in a phrasal verb: gloss over (“to cover up a mistake or crime, to treat something with less care than it deserves”).
To become shiny.
To add a gloss to (a text).
•
To make (something) attractive by deception
- You have the art to gloss the foulest cause. — 1722

forms

glossed · glossing · glosses

Phrases with gloss

gloss over
To treat something with less care than it in some ways deserves; to ignore, or at least to discount or dismiss for the current purposes.

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