gloss

Meanings

Noun

• A surface shine or luster.
• A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.
• 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.
• A glossary; a collection of such notes.
• An expression requiring such explanatory treatment.
• An extensive commentary on some text.
• An interpretation by a court of specific point within a statute or case law.

Verb

• To give a gloss or sheen to.
• To make (something) attractive by deception
• To become shiny.
• To add a gloss to (a text).

Origin

• Probably from a North Germanic language, compare Icelandic glossi, glossa; or perhaps from dialectal Dutch gloos, related to West Frisian gloeze, Middle Low German glȫsen, German glosen; ultimately from Proto-Germanic *glus-, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰel-. More at glow.
• From Middle English glosse, glose, from Late Latin glōssa ("obsolete or foreign word requiring explanation"), from Ancient Greek γλῶσσα ("language"). glossa.
• From Middle English glossen, glosen, from Old French gloser and Medieval Latin glossāre.