gloss1
/ɡlɒs
/noun [mass noun]
1Shine or lustre on a smooth surface: hair with a healthy gloss...
- The entire process takes about a week and is completed by giving the candied chestnuts a final coating of sugar syrup which dries to a smooth clear gloss.
- It is in the scalp that natural oils are manufactured and distributed throughout your hair to give it shine and gloss.
- You look outside and see it - that shining, shimmering gloss of frost on the ground, on the car, and in the trees.
Synonyms
shine, sheen, lustre, gleam, patina, shininess, glossiness, brightness, brilliance, shimmer, sparkle;
polish, burnish, glaze, varnish
1.1 (also gloss paint) A type of paint which dries to a shiny surface: the undercoat is applied, followed by two coats of gloss [as modifier]: a gloss finish...
- A previous owner had painted the top in gloss paint, which cracked after only a few weeks, and made the roof look like crazy paving.
- When painting using gloss paint, the paint tends to go on your hands and generally all over the place.
- I do not want to paint it with gloss paint as it took ages to strip in the first place.
2 [in singular] A superficially attractive appearance or impression: beneath the gloss of success was a tragic private life...
- This film at least rips away the superficial gloss, and forces us to confront the utter savagery of the abuse heaped on Christ.
- Beneath the manufactured gloss of the event is a public transport infrastructure bursting at the seams.
- However, the legislation does still retain a superficial gloss to tempt the consumer/voter.
Synonyms
facade, veneer, surface, front, show, camouflage, disguise, mask, semblance, smokescreen, outward appearance, false appearance;
window dressing, attractive appearance
verb [with object]
1Apply a glossy substance to: [with object and complement]: the pebble-dash of the walls was glossed stickily white (as adjective glossed) her glossed copper lips...
- I use it on my lips, gloss it on my eyebrows, rub it into dry skin, use as hand and foot cream and, on long flights, lavish it under my eyes.
- Casey and her cronies all let their perfect lip glossed lips fall.
- Claire pursed her perfectly glossed lips and considered me a moment.
Synonyms
make glossy, shine, give a shine to;
glaze, polish, burnish
2 (gloss over) Try to conceal or disguise (something unfavourable) by treating it briefly or representing it misleadingly: the social costs of this growth are glossed over...
- All of these fertile sources rear their heads in this film, and all are briefly glossed over or flat out ignored.
- But though Einhard declared he would record nothing through hearsay, he also glossed over facts unfavourable to his hero.
- I briefly glossed over it in standard grade maths, but only just.
Synonyms
conceal, cover up, hide, camouflage, disguise, mask, veil, draw a veil over, whitewash;
explain away;
evade, avoid, shrug off, brush aside, play down, downplay, minimize, understate, make light of, soft-pedal, de-emphasize
informal brush something under the carpet
rare gloze over
Derivatives
glosser
- A cheaper but just as cheerful range is also available, where lip glossers in cherry, blackberry, green apple and nectarine are just £3.
- The one thing that's constant is the fact that, in our analyses, both the hypothetical insulters and our actual glossers are using the word.
- Purchase a clear glosser at your local drug store or create a home vinegar rinse.
Origin
Mid 16th century: of unknown origin.
Rhymes
gloss2
/ɡlɒs/noun
1A translation or explanation of a word or phrase.For the commonest form of ‘hack’, the OED gives the gloss and etymology....
- He glosses word-bomb, which he admits is a ‘clunky construction’, at arm's length.
- If you wonder about ‘furphy’, as I did, here's a gloss and explanation.
1.1An explanation, interpretation, or paraphrase of a text: the chapter acts as a helpful gloss on Pynchon’s general method...
- The theological treatises were probably already known at the court of Charlemagne around 800, and a tradition of glosses to the text probably goes back to the later ninth century.
- Add to the author's own notes the glosses and historicizing of the book's editor, and you have a book with nearly three times the length of commentary as of text.
- Such commentary and glosses have profound applications for contextualizing the archival documents presented in this series.
verb [with object]
1Provide an explanation, interpretation, or paraphrase for (a text, word, etc.): the Japanese word often glossed as ‘sincerity’ really means something different...
- He glosses the term as ‘being a colloquial word for anger’.
- But why then did he not simply gloss the word ‘necessity’ with ‘chronos’?
- For myself, I think there are dangers in seeking to gloss the words of the Convention itself.
Synonyms
explain, give an explanation of, interpret, explicate, elucidate;
annotate, add notes/footnotes to, add a commentary to, comment on;
translate, paraphrase, construe
rare footnote, margin, marginalize
1.1 [no object] (gloss on/upon) archaic Make comments, especially unfavourable ones, about (something): those laws, which they assumed the liberty of interpreting and glossing upon...
- It's a shrewd attempt to further their cause of inciting hatred and horror by glossing on a Western façade of ‘contemporary culture’ - and exporting it abroad, as a filmmaker notes.
- In effect, and glossing on Nielsen's analysis, Durkheim could not escape the limitations of the tradition precisely because he remained true to its central questions and its foundational distinctions.
Origin
Mid 16th century: alteration of the noun gloze, from Old French glose (see gloze), suggested by medieval Latin glossa 'explanation of a difficult word', from Greek glōssa 'word needing explanation, language, tongue'.