glance

1. 1

   To turn (one's eyes or look) at something, often briefly.transitive

   • Deare heart forbeare to glance thine eye aſide, / What needſt thou wound with cunning when thy might / Is more then my ore-preſt defence can bide?
   • Vivian glanced a look, which would have been annihilation to any one, not a freeholder of five hundred acres.
2. 2

   To look briefly at (something).transitive

   • A horseman rode up as he spoke, and gave a letter. Claverhouse glanced it over, laughed scornfully, bade him tell his master to send his prisoners to Edinburgh, for there was no answer; […]
3. 3

   To cause (light) to gleam or sparkle.transitive

   • The bink, with its usual arrangement of pewter and earthenware, which was most strictly and critically clean, glanced back the flame of the lamp merrily from one side of the apartment.
4. 4

   To cause (something) to move obliquely.alsofigurativelytransitive

   • One morning as I lay in my bed, a ſtrong motion was ſuddenly glanced into my thoughts of going to London; I aroſe and betook me to the way, […]
   • [S]hould we croſs them, tho they ſhould ſee Shoals of Fiſh, or Turtle, or the like, they will purpoſely ſtrike their Harpoons and Turtle-irons aſide, or ſo glance them as to kill nothing.
5. 5

   To cause (something) to move obliquely.; To hit (a ball) lightly, causing it to move in another direction.alsofigurativelytransitive

   • Doncaster paid the price two minutes later when [Kevin] Doyle sent [Stephen] Hunt away down the left and his pinpoint cross was glanced in by Fletcher for his sixth goal of the season.
6. 6

   To cause (something) to move obliquely.; To hit (a ball) with a bat held in a slanted manner; also, to play such a stroke against (the bowler).alsofigurativelytransitive

7. 7

   To communicate (something) using the eyes.figurativelytransitive

   • [T]here his Eye took diſtant Aim, / And glanc'd Reſpect to that bright Dame, […]
   • As if there were no glowing eye i’ the world, / To glance straight inspiration to my brain, / No glorious heart to give mine twice the beats!
8. 8

   To touch (something) lightly or obliquely; to graze.obsoletetransitive

   • Alone, it was the ſubiect of my Theame: / In company I often glanced it: / Still did I tell him, it was vilde and bad.
   • Afterwards I tooke a walke in yᵉ King’s gardens, where I observ’d that the Mall gos the whole square thereof next yᵉ wall, and bends with an angle so made as to glace [glance] yᵉ hall; the angle is of stone.
9. 9

   To make an incidental or passing reflection, often unfavourably, on (a topic); also, to make (an incidental or passing reflection, often unfavourable).obsoletetransitive

   • I will this Night, / in ſeuerall Hands, in at his Windowes throw, / As if they came from ſeuerall Citizens, / Writings, all tending to the great opinion / That Rome holds of his Name: wherein obſcurely / Cæſars Ambition ſhall be glanced at.
   • [T]hey rush upon him, and he narrowly escapes killing or ducking, for having ventured to glance a censure at the General.
10. 10

    To strike and fly off in an oblique direction; to dart aside.alsofigurativelyintransitive

    • A has a little gald me I confeſſe: / And as the Ieſt did glaunce awaie from me, […]
    • I am glad yet your arrow hath glanced.

syn. glance · gleg · glimpse · shufti · dekko

1. 1

   A brief or cursory look.alsocountablefiguratively

   • Fie, fie, vnknit that thretaning vnkinde brow, / And dart not ſcornefull glances from thoſe eies, / To wound thy Lord, thy King, thy Gouernour.
   • Hard to ſeeme wonne: but I was wonne my Lord / With the firſt glance; […]
2. 2

   A quick movement that catches light, and causes a flash or glitter; also, the flash or glitter.alsocountablefiguratively

   • The ayre here is freſh and ſweet in the morning and towards Sunſet, but in the Sunnes perpendicular glances, wee found it hot and raging: […]
   • [E]ach Creek & Bay / With Frie innumerable ſwarme, and Shoales / Of Fiſh that with thir Finns and ſhining Scales / Glide under the green Wave, […] ſporting with quick glance / Show to the Sun thir wav’d coats dropt with Gold, […]
3. 3

   A stroke in which the ball is hit with a bat held in a slanted manner.countableuncountable

4. 4

   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.countableuncountable

5. 5

   An act of striking and flying off in an oblique direction; a deflection.countableobsoleteuncountable

6. 6

   An incidental or passing allusion or thought, often unfavourable, expressed on a topic.countablefigurativelyobsolete

   • [W]hen Marcus Philoſophus came in, Sylenus was grauelled, and out of countenance, not knowing where to carpe at him, ſaue at the laſt, he gaue a glaunce at his patience towards his wife.

1. 1

   Ellipsis of glance coal (“any hard, lustrous coal such as anthracite”).abbreviationalt-ofcountable

2. 2

   Any of various sulphides, mostly dark-coloured, which have a brilliant metallic lustre.countableuncountable

   • copper glance silver glance