glance

Alternative forms

• glaunce (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English glacen (“to graze, strike a glancing blow”), from Old French glacier (“to slip, make slippery”). Sense of "look quickly" (first recorded 1580s) probably was influenced in form and meaning by Middle English glenten (“to look askance”). See glint.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡlɑːns/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡlæns/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːns, -æns

Verb

glance (third-person singular simple present glances, present participle glancing, simple past and past participle glanced)

1. (intransitive) To look briefly (at something).

   She glanced at her reflection as she passed the mirror.

   • Shakespeare

     The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, / Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven.

2. (intransitive) To graze a surface.
3. To sparkle.

   The spring sunlight was glancing on the water of the pond.

   • Tennyson

     From art, from nature, from the schools, / Let random influences glance, / Like light in many a shivered lance, / That breaks about the dappled pools.

4. To move quickly, appearing and disappearing rapidly; to be visible only for an instant at a time; to move interruptedly; to twinkle.
   • Macaulay

     And all along the forum and up the sacred seat, / His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet.

5. To strike and fly off in an oblique direction; to dart aside.
   • William Shakespeare

     Your arrow hath glanced.

   • John Milton

     On me the curse aslope / Glanced on the ground.

   • Mary Shelley, The Mortal Immortal

     I started — I dropped the glass — the fluid flamed and glanced along the floor, while I felt Cornelius's gripe at my throat, as he shrieked aloud, "Wretch! you have destroyed the labour of my life!"

6. (soccer) To hit lightly with the head, make a deft header.
   • 2011 January 18, “Wolverhampton 5 - 0 Doncaster”, in BBC‎:

     Doncaster paid the price two minutes later when Doyle sent Hunt away down the left and his pinpoint cross was glanced in by Fletcher for his sixth goal of the season.

7. To make an incidental or passing reflection; to allude; to hint; often with at.
   • Shakespeare

     Wherein obscurely / Caesar's ambition shall be glanced at.

   • Jonathan Swift

     He glanced at a certain reverend doctor.

Noun

glance (plural glances)

1. A brief or cursory look.
   • William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

     Dart not scornful glances from those eyes.

   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars:

     Warwick left the undertaker's shop and retraced his steps until he had passed the lawyer's office, toward which he threw an affectionate glance.

   • 1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:

     But Richmond, his grandfather's darling, after one thoughtful glance cast under his lashes at that uncompromising countenance appeared to lose himself in his own reflections.

2. A deflection.
3. (cricket) A stroke in which the ball is deflected to one side.
4. A sudden flash of light or splendour.
   • John Milton (1608-1674)

     swift as the lightning glance

5. An incidental or passing thought or allusion.
   • William Cowper (1731-1800)

     How fleet is a glance of the mind.

6. (mineralogy) Any of various sulphides, mostly dark-coloured, which have a brilliant metallic lustre.

   copper glance

7. (mineralogy) Glance coal.