glance
Meanings
- To turn (one's eyes or look) at something, often briefly.
- To look briefly at (something).
- To cause (light) to gleam or sparkle.
- To cause (something) to move obliquely.
- To hit (a ball) lightly, causing it to move in another direction.
- To hit (a ball) with a bat held in a slanted manner; also, to play such a stroke against (the bowler).
- To communicate (something) using the eyes.
- To touch (something) lightly or obliquely; to graze.
- To make an incidental or passing reflection, often unfavourably, on (a topic); also, to make (an incidental or passing reflection, often unfavourable).
- To strike and fly off in an oblique direction; to dart aside.
- To hit a ball with a bat held in a slanted manner.
- Of certain juvenile fish, chiefly of the Cichlidae family: to rapidly touch the side of its parent's body, usually to feed on mucus.
- A brief or cursory look.
- A quick movement that catches light, and causes a flash or glitter; also, the flash or glitter.
- A stroke in which the ball is hit with a bat held in a slanted manner.
- Of certain juvenile fish, chiefly of the Cichlidae family: an act of rapidly touching the side of its parent's body, usually to feed on mucus.
- An act of striking and flying off in an oblique direction; a deflection.
- An incidental or passing allusion or thought, often unfavourable, expressed on a topic.
- Ellipsis of glance coal (“any hard, lustrous coal such as anthracite”).
- Any of various sulphides, mostly dark-coloured, which have a brilliant metallic lustre.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
The verb is derived from Late Middle English glenchen (“of a blow: to strike obliquely, glance; of a person: to turn quickly aside, dodge”) [and other forms], a blend of: * Old French glacier, glachier, glaichier (“to slide; to slip”) (whence also Middle English glacen (“of a blow: to strike obliquely, glance; to glide”)), from glace (“frozen water, ice”) (from Vulgar Latin *glacia, from Latin glaciēs (“ice”), of uncertain origin, + -ier (suffix forming infinitives of first-conjugation verbs); and * Old French guenchir, ganchir (“to avoid; to change direction; to elude, evade”) [and other forms], from Proto-West Germanic *wankijan (“to move aside; to stagger, sway; to wave”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weng- (“to bend”). The noun is derived from the verb. The sense "to look briefly (at something)" is probably due to partial conflation with Middle English glenten (“to look askance”)—the ancestor of English glint—in the Middle English period. This conflation may also have reinforced the medial -n-. See English glint