HOW TO PRONOUNCE
gloss
/ɡlɔs/
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American Pronunciation Guide · 1:05
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What does gloss mean?
noun
- A surface shine or luster.
- (figuratively) A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.
verb
- To give a gloss or sheen to.
More meanings (10)
verb
- 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”).
- To add a gloss to (a text).
noun
- 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 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.
- (obsolete) An expression requiring such explanatory treatment.
Definitions regrouped for readability · CC BY-SA 4.0
IPA pronunciation
/ɡlɔs/
Wiktionary contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗Pronunciation varies by speaker and region. About these dictionary pronunciations.
In the pages of books
See this word in context.
The inside of these little cells has the gloss and polish of a stucco which our most experienced plasterers might envy.
It became her perfectly, bringing out all the delicate, flower-like tints of her face and the gloss and burnish of her hair.
More book examples (3)
He attempted to gloss over the declarations of Scripture against lending at interest, in an elaborate treatise, but was immediately confronted by Bossuet.
Here was no rich man's doxy lazily seeking a veneer of culture, enough to gloss the rough patches of speech and idea betraying humble origin.
Porcupine and opossum fats for preserving their hair, fish fat to gloss their skins, emu fat in cold weather to save their skins from chapping.