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Gloss   /glɔs/   Listen
Gloss

noun
1.
An explanation or definition of an obscure word in a text.  Synonym: rubric.
2.
An alphabetical list of technical terms in some specialized field of knowledge; usually published as an appendix to a text on that field.  Synonym: glossary.
3.
The property of being smooth and shiny.  Synonyms: burnish, glossiness, polish.
4.
An outward or token appearance or form that is deliberately misleading.  Synonyms: color, colour, semblance.  "He tried to give his falsehood the gloss of moral sanction" , "The situation soon took on a different color"



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"Gloss" Quotes from Famous Books



... do to indulge in these thoughts," I exclaimed, passing the palm of my hand to my brow; "they will unman me, or make me turn traitor. Traitor! ay, that's the word. I must throw no false gloss over it. Deserter—a wretch, false to his flag! No, no; she herself would despise me. These men now in arms around me have never sworn allegiance to their sovereign; they have been forced into rebellion by ill-treatment and injustice, by numberless insults. I should ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest sternness, "or I'll knock your head off!—Do me the favor to be seated, sir. Now, this," said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out in a flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand under it to show the gloss, "is a very sweet article. I can recommend it for your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall see some others. Give me Number Four, you!" (To the boy, and with a dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... university, it is happily quite unnecessary for me to bespeak interest in a subject by any reference to possible practical applications. But any practical application of what I have dealt with this evening is apparently so far distant as to be free from any sordid gloss of competition and company promotion, and is interesting in itself as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various

... not love ceremonies," said the parson, "for they are too often 'devised to set a gloss on faint deeds,' and there are such of them as throw the thing they celebrate further away than the ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... was a closed book to the common people in France. The learned might familiarize themselves with its contents by a perusal of the Latin Vulgate; but readers acquainted with their mother tongue alone were reduced to the necessity of using a rude version wherein text and gloss were mingled in inextricable confusion, and the Scriptures were made to countenance the most absurd abuses.[153] The best furnished libraries rarely contained more than a few detached books of the Bible, and these intended for ornament rather than use.[154] Lefevre resolved, therefore, ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird

... by two crosses) three of whom, Prachetas, Kasyapa and Gargya, are on Parasara's list, and the remaining fourteen, not before mentioned: Madhusudana Saraswati names the same nineteen of Yajnavalkya's list, also Devala, Narada, Paithinasi: Rama Krishna, in his gloss to the Grihya Sutras of Paraskara, mentions thirty-nine, of whom nine (distinguished by three crosses) are new ones. There is also a Dharma Sastra attributed to Sankha and Likhita jointly, thus making forty-seven in the whole. The professor considers all to be extant; and has ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya

... devoid of ornament. The paint was robin's egg blue and of a satin gloss. The shining floor was of the same color, and neat braided rugs covered exposed places near the bureau, washstand, and bed. Various useful articles of Shaker manufacture interested Sue greatly: the exquisite straw-work that covered the whisk-broom; ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... side of the question. They write like men who feel, as Bollandus their founder did, that under no circumstances is it right to tell a lie. They never hesitate to avow their own convictions and predilections. They draw their own conclusions, and put their own gloss upon facts and documents; but yet they give the documents as they found them, and they enable the impartial student—working not in trammels as they did—to make a sounder and truer use of them. They display not the spirit of the mere confessor whose tone has been lowered ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... me leisure, I shall read and think with pleasure; Conversation learn to relish, And with books my mind embellish. Now, methinks, I hear you cry, Mr. Dean, you must reply. Madam, I allow 'tis true: All these praises are your due. You, like some acute philosopher, Every fault have drawn a gloss over;[1] Placing in the strongest light All your virtues to my sight. Though you lead a blameless life, Are an humble prudent wife, Answer all domestic ends: What is this to us your friends? Though your children by a nod Stand in awe without a rod; Though, by your obliging sway, ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... and their lives suffice for them—the daily, domestic routine that is most horrible drudgery to me, pleases and satisfies them. It must be that I have an incapacity for life; I daresay when the novelty and gloss wear off, I shall tire equally of the life I am going to. A new dress, a dance, a beau, and the hope of a prospective husband suffices for the girls I speak of. For me—none of your sarcastic smiles, sir—the thought of a ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... of a blunt 'true born Englishman'. There was a stratum of common clay under the rock of marble. He was voraciously fond of good eating; and he had a great deal of that quality called humour, which gives an oiliness and a gloss to ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... opens. Philosophy there is, and very good philosophy too, from the flutterer and fritter, and such love-making as every virtuous woman (at heart a minx) allows. She is sorry, doubtless, for the suffering she causes, but (this is my gloss, not, I think, the author's) is really enjoying it like anything and taking jolly good care to look her best. Then follow little lies and as little and as needless and quite innocent indiscretions; and the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 11, 1920 • Various

... certainly have rejected the preliminaries, and all other advances towards a pacification; that, therefore, they ought not to grudge an expense which had already proved so beneficial to the tranquillity of Europe. Sir Joseph Jekyll replied, that whatever gloss might be put upon such measures, they were repugnant to the maxims by which England in former times had steered and squared its conduct with relation to its interest abroad; that the navy was the natural strength of Great Britain—its best ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... perhaps, at odd times give him a prick in the midst of his enjoyments, and which after all have some foundation in justice, and point, in their confused way, to some more honourable honesty within the reach of man. And at least, is not this an unusual gloss upon the eighth commandment? And what sort of comfort, guidance, or illumination did that precept afford my friend throughout these contentions? 'Thou shalt not steal.' With all my heart! ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... remarked, that what strikes a candid student of Mr. Darwin's works is not so much his industry, his knowledge, or even the surprising fertility of his inventive genius; but that unswerving truthfulness and honesty which never permit him to hide a weak place, or gloss over a difficulty, but lead him, on all occasions, to point out the weak places in his own armour, and even sometimes, it appears to me, to make admissions against himself which are quite unnecessary. A ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley

... for human ends must be attained by human means. But the dean saw a ray of hope out of those purblind old eyes of his. Yes, let them tell the bishop how distasteful to them was this Mr Slope: new bishop just come to his seat could not wish to insult his clergy while the gloss was yet fresh on ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... China and Japan, was introduced into England in 1751 and is a favourite in parks and gardens. A silk spinning moth, the ailanthus moth (Bombyx or Philosamia cynthia), lives on its leaves, and yields a silk more durable and cheaper than mulberry silk, but inferior to it in fineness and gloss. This moth is common near many towns in the eastern United States; it is about 5 in. across, with angulated wings, and in colour olive brown, with white markings. Other species of ailanthus are: A. imberbifiora and A. punctata, important Australian ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... employ thy mind, The free-born muse detests that servile part: In simple lore thy self-taught lay I find More grandeur far than all the gloss ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright

... experience of affairs in Canada told him that Boulanger had good grounds for what he said. The courtly magnificence of Versailles and the Tuileries might dazzle his understanding so far as to blind him to the existence of many crying evils in old France, but here there was nothing to gild and gloss over the corruption and mismanagement that everywhere prevailed. The shameful monopoly of all commerce by the Merchant Company; the iniquitous sale of spirits by the Government to the Indians; the rapacity exhibited in the system of trade-licences ...
— The King's Warrant - A Story of Old and New France • Alfred H. Engelbach

... certainly struck me as a compilation, but of the highest class; for when possible the facts have been verified on the spot, making it almost an original work. The Glacial chapters seem to me best, and in parts magnificent. I could hardly judge about Man, as all the gloss of novelty was completely worn off. But certainly the aggregation of the evidence produced a very striking effect on my mind. The chapter comparing language and changes of species seems most ingenious and interesting. He has shown ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... of attacking her. He would be very humble at first, but after a while his humility should be discontinued, whether she accepted or rejected him. He knew well that it did not become a husband to be humble; and as regarded a lover, he thought that humility was merely the outside gloss of love-making. He had been humble enough on the former occasion, and would begin now in the same strain. But after a while he would stir himself, and assume the manner of a man. "Miss Grey," he said, as soon as they were ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope

... remembered that he does not gloss over Louis's actions, even though he had an admiration for the success of his political methods, methods which Commines believed to be essential in dealing with national affairs. In many respects he gives more credit to the ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... reason pressed on, and among them, in the seventeenth century, in France, was Richard Simon. He attempted to gloss over the declarations of Scripture against lending at interest, in an elaborate treatise, but was immediately confronted by Bossuet. Just as Bossuet had mingled Scripture with astronomy and opposed the Copernican theory, ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... deliberation in this, May serve to give you counsel: to be honest, Religious and thankfull, in themselves Are forcible motives, and can need no flourish Or gloss in the perswader; your kept faith, (Though Pompey never rise to th' height he's fallen from) Caesar himself will love; and my opinion Is (still committing it to graver censure) You pay the debt you owe him, with the hazard Of ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... adds when their children remember their altars and Asherim rightly taken by Duhm and Cornill as a gloss. ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... rosebud garden of girls, Come hither, the dances are done, In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls, Queen lily and rose in one; Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls, To the ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... blab it out to somebody. I think you would be sorry to see her. She tries to persuade herself that because her soul did not consent she was really not to blame. That is the thing that women are always saying, isn't it? They draw this distinction when it is too late, and use it as a quibble to gloss over their fault. Oh, I gave it her! I told her she should have thought of that in time, and died rather than yield. It was all very fine to talk of a minute of weakness—mere weakness of bodily will, not ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... was a—slight but definite—'personality.' Frank Harris had engaged me to kick up my heels in The Saturday Review, Alfred Harmsworth was letting me do likewise in The Daily Mail. I was just what Soames wasn't. And he shamed my gloss. Had I known that he really and firmly believed in the greatness of what he as an artist had achieved, I might not have shunned him. No man who hasn't lost his vanity can be held to have altogether failed. Soames' dignity was an illusion of mine. One day in the first week of June, 1897, that ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... exceptional social position which, either through associations of hereditary ease, refinement, wealth and elegance, or by contact with "the best" of everything from childhood up, confers on those who belong to it very much the same outward gloss the world over. But it is never among such exceptions that the distinctive characteristics of a nation are to be sought. These are to be looked for in the great mass of the people. Now, the great mass of Americans who go abroad ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... the third century the two most eminent fathers of the West, countenanced the exposition; [358:2] and though both these writers were lamentably deficient in critical sagacity, men of inferior standing were slow to impugn the verdict of such champions of the faith. Thus it was that a false gloss of Scripture was already enthralling the mind of Christendom; and Stephen boldly renewed the attempt at domination commenced by his predecessor Victor. His opponents deserved far greater credit for the sturdy ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... Oscar's later gloss on what actually happened, it is fairly accurate. He was never able to realise how his meeting with Lord Alfred Douglas had changed the world to him and him to the world. The effect on the harder fibre of the boy was chiefly mental: to Alfred Douglas, Oscar was merely ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... are taking the gloss all off 'em, too, and I want 'em to look new when I wear 'em ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... Bactrian coins (see A. von Sallet, "Die Nachfolger Alexanders des Grossen," p. 57, etc.)? or is {koiranos} the connecting link? The words translated "that is to say, supreme lord," {to de karanon esti kurion}, look very like a commentator's gloss. ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon

... cocoon and hang the rude walls of its abode with silk. On the other hand, the Anthophorae and the Halicti, two species of Wild Bees whose grubs weave no cocoon, delicately glaze the inside of their earthen cells and give them the gloss of ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... in the History of Education; Mediaeval Universities, pp. 59-75, gives an extract from a text (Gratian) and "gloss" by various writers, on the question—"Shall Priests be Acquainted with Profane Literature, or No?" which see for a good example of mediaeval university instruction and the manner in which a small amount of knowledge was spun out ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... usual exaggerates the knowledge possessed by the personae of the dialogue; cf. Introd. p. 38, De Or. II. 1. In promptu: so II. 10. Quod ista ipsa ... cogitavi: Goer., who half a page back had made merry over the gloss hunters, here himself scented a miserable gloss; Schutz, Goerenz's echo expels the words. Yet they are thoroughly like Cic. (cf. De Div. II. 1, Cat. Mai. 38), and moreover nothing is more Ciceronian than the repetition of words and clauses in slightly altered forms. The reason here is partly ...
— Academica • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... his soul!—used much this manner among his servants. When one of them praised any deed of his or any quality in him, if he perceived that they said but the truth he would let it pass by uncontrolled. But when he saw that they set a gloss on it for his praise of their own making besides, then would he shortly say unto them, "I pray thee, good fellow, when thou sayest grace at my board, never bring in a Gloria Patri without a sicut erat. Any act that ever I did, if thou report it again to mine honour with a ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More

... from a MS. of the latter half of the fifteenth century, which Mr. Thomas Wright edited for the Percy Society in 1847. The spelling is even more archaic than the above, so that it is modernised, and a gloss given for all those words which may not be easily ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton

... aloft— Gown'd in pure white, that fitted to the shape— Holding the bush, to fix it back, she stood. A single stream of all her soft brown hair Pour'd on one side: the shadow of the flowers Stole all the golden gloss, and, wavering Lovingly lower, trembled on her waist— Ah, happy shade—and still went wavering down, But, ere it touch'd a foot, that might have danced The greensward into greener circles, dipt, And mix'd with shadows of the common ground! But the full day dwelt on her brows, and sunn'd ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... transfixed by no abatis of dangerous pins. It was not parted but was thrown straight backward over the head and hung down fairly and far between brown shoulders. It was a fine head of hair; there could be no question about that. It had gloss and color. Captious critics, reasoning from the standpoint of another age, might think it needed combing, but that is only a matter of opinion. It was tangled together in a compact and fluffy mass, and so did not wander into the woman's eyes, ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo

... gallant young men, their own sons and the sons of neighbors: and it was like the opening chapter of a story. Ah! the story had run through many chapters since then, and what different ones! The smart uniforms had lost all their gloss, blood was upon the flags, the glory had changed to ashes; every family wore mourning for somebody. The pleasant Charleston home, where Mrs. Pickens had stood on the balcony to watch the gray-coated troops pass by, and little Annie had fluttered her mite of a handkerchief, and laughed as ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... holograph, defiled, erased, and covered by a monk's.' What he has written is fresh, legible, and in full conformity with the manners and the diction of the day, and those who are unable to understand him without gloss and comment are in fact not prepared to understand what it is that the original has to say. Scarcely any literature is so entirely unprofitable as the so-called criticism that overlays a pithy text with a windy sermon. For our time at least Emerson ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley

... is dry apply a coat of thin shellac as a filler to the surface to paint upon. This filler should be very thin and leave only a suggestion of gloss. ...
— Taxidermy • Leon Luther Pray

... lords of naked cliffs. The pulseless forest, lock'd and interlock'd So closely, bough with bough, and leaf with leaf, So serf'd by its own wealth, that while from high The moons of summer kiss'd its green-gloss'd locks; And round its knees the merry West Wind danc'd; And round its ring, compacted emerald; The south wind crept on moccasins of flame; And the fed fingers of th' impatient sun Pluck'd at its outmost fringes—its dim veins Beat with no life—its deep and dusky heart, In a deep ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... gloss the cruelties perpetrated in Belgium. My individual wish is to see them pictured as crimson as possible, that men may the fiercer revolt against the shame and horror of this red butchery called war. But this is ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams

... place at a comparatively recent epoch, for the surface of the coral has scarcely suffered from the action of the weather, and hundreds of sea-shells, exactly resembling those still found upon the beach, and many of them retaining their gloss and even their colour, are scattered over the surface of the ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... thousand talents. Its columns are of Pentelic marble, exquisitely proportioned, which I myself saw at Athens; but at Rome they were again cut and polished, by which process they did not gain so much in gloss as they lost in symmetry, for they now appear too slender. However, if any one who wonders at the expense of the temple in the Capitol were to see the splendour of any one portico, hall, or chamber in the house of Domitian, he would ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... less ordinary sort of generosity of Granville's," said Lady Davenant,—"the giving up a new pleasure, a new whim with all its gloss fresh upon it, full and ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... perhaps the Ionic rather than the Doric race, the features of the royal Spartan were noble and commanding. His complexion was sunburnt, almost to oriental swarthiness, and the raven's plume had no darker gloss than that of his long hair, which (contrary to the Spartan custom), flowing on either side, mingled with the closer curls of the beard. To a scrutinizing gaze, the more dignified and prepossessing effect ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... rolled back to Ringgold County. "Ten thousand dollars! ten thousand dollars!" rang through township after township. "Ten thousand dollars! ten thousand dollars!" murmured the crowds that blocked the street before the big entrance to Meyer, Van Horn, and Co.'s. All this homage helped Jared to gloss over the paltriness of their actual check. By reason of this double hosanna he was a ten-thousand-dollar man in ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... "annotative" style with a parenthetic comment. The passage in brackets might be a gloss, but is it? ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon

... appearance of the former might, perhaps, be obtained by treating the apparel with a preparation of plumbago or black lead; that of the latter by the use of some fuliginous substance, as a dye, or, perhaps, by direct fumigation. The gloss upon the cheeks might be produced by perseverance in the process of dry-rubbing; the more humid style of visage, by the application of emollient cataplasms. General sallowness would result, as a matter of course, from assiduous dissipation. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various

... da' moderni e chiamata Frislanda." Vita dell' Ammiraglio, cap. iv. In the original edition of 1571, there are no quotation-marks; and in some modern editions, where these are supplied, the quotation is wrongly made to end just before the last sentence, so as to make it appear like a gloss of Ferdinand's. This is, however, impossible. Ferdinand died in 1539, and the Zeno narrative of Frislanda was not published till 1558, so that the only source from which that name could have come into his book was his father's document. ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... that the bad Catholics are diabolically perverting venerable Christmas customs, but there can be little doubt that precisely the opposite was really the case—the Christian symbolism was merely a gloss upon pagan practices. In one instance Alsso admits that the Church had adopted and transformed a heathen usage: the old calendisationes or processions with an idol Bel had been changed into processions of clergy and choir-boys with the crucifix. Round the villages on the Eve and ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles

... pardon,) so far from that being the whole of the meaning of the Canon, his gloss happens exactly to miss the only important point. The plain meaning of the words,—"Only out of the Scriptures can you explain the Scriptures,"—is obviously rather this:—'That in order to interpret the Bible, our aim must be to ascertain how ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... like an oracle, my boy! And if you reply 'Yes,' there will be a case for Euripides; for our tongue will be unconvinced, but not our mind. (In allusion to the well-known line of Euripides, Hippol.: e gloss omomoch e de ...
— Theaetetus • Plato

... Now whatever gloss of gayety Dr. Nesbit might put upon his opinion of Grant Adams and his work in the world, it was evident that the Doctor's opinion of that work was not high. But it was comparatively high; for Harvey's opinion of Grant Adams and his work was abysmal in its depth. He was running his life ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... in our midst the men and women of the future. Outside their hovels or sack huts, poetically called 'tents' and 'encampments,' but in reality schools for teaching their children how to gild double-dyed lies,—sugar-coat deception, gloss idleness and filth, paint immorality with Asiatic ideas, notions, and hues, and put a pleasant and cheerful aspect upon taking things that do not belong to them, may be seen thousands of ragged, half-naked, dirty, ignorant and wretched Gipsy children, and the men loitering about mostly in ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... off trying to gloss it over with me, except so far as it is part of her nature. She did at first, but she knows it is ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the weary soldiers rest themselves when returned to Troy, are fair and smooth; all the fine qualities, in colour and texture, of woven stuff are carefully noted—the fineness, closeness, softness, pliancy, gloss, the whiteness or nectar-like tints in which the weaver delights to work; to weave the sea-purple threads is the appropriate function of queens and noble women. All the Homeric shields are more or less ornamented with variously coloured ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... folkmote, a county court, which was assembled once a year, and where all the freeholders swore allegiance to the king. [b] Sometimes abbesses were admitted; at least, they often sign the king's charters or grants. Spellm. Gloss. in verbo PARLIAMENTUM. [c] Wilkins, passim. [d] See note [G] at the end ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... upon his bare hands. It was Wilbur, and yet not Wilbur. In two minutes he had been, in a way, born again. The only traces of his former self were the patent-leather boots, still persistent in their gloss and shine, that showed grim incongruity below the vast compass of the ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... carefully; it has not been a lightly-considered matter with me at all, and, after thinking it well over, I have come to the conclusion that it is not sufficient to part us. You see, sweet, that you may implicitly believe me. I have no false gloss of compliments. Frankly, as you yourself would do, I admit the drawback; but, unlike you, I affirm ...
— Wife in Name Only • Charlotte M. Braeme (Bertha M. Clay)

... require any starch, but those that are partly worn look better for a little, every thing washes easier that has starch in. Nice table cloths, and all fine things, after being sprinkled and folded, should be tightly rolled up in towels, and ironed till perfectly dry, they will then retain their gloss. Large table cloths should be brushed clean from crumbs, and folded without shaking, as that tumbles them; those in daily use should be put under a press—a heavy book is suitable, or a board may be made for the purpose; they will keep in credit much longer ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea

... allowance should have been made for the situation in which he was placed, between his own counsels and those of the ministers and party of the court. Overruled in his own opinions, compelled to deliver, and to gloss over those of his opponents, and even to keep their secrets, he could not come ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... foundation, but is, even in itself, most improbable. To this must still be added the consideration that this interpretation of Ben-Nezer is opposed by the constant interpretation of the Jews. Jarchi, in a gloss on that passage of the Talmud referred to, explains Ben Nezer by: "He who has come from the town of Nazareth." Abarbanel [Pg 108] in his book Majenehajeshua, after having quoted from Jalkut Shimeoni the passage in question, observes: "Remark ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... thee (reader) plainly, that for the generality, the very opinions that are held at this day by the Quakers, are the same that long ago were held by the Ranters. Only the Ranters had made them threadbare at an alehouse, and the Quakers have set a new gloss upon them again, by an outward legal holiness, or righteousness. But again, Why should you be so angry with my brother, for joining of a sinner and a liar together? Is there any great harm in that? Surely no. And the joining Ranters and Quakers together, is ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... gloss of polite society," he returned. "There is no soundness in her heart. We know that, for the tree is judged by ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur

... misfortunes to study the highest problems, and bequeathing his knowledge for the benefit of future ages! Can such a man be stigmatized as "the meanest of mankind"? Is it candid and just for a great historian to indorse such a verdict, to gloss over Bacon's virtues, and make like an advocate at the bar, or an ancient sophist, a special plea to magnify his defects, and stain his noble name with an infamy as deep as would be inflicted upon ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord

... seems to manifest inherent excellencies, a laudable effort towards self-improvement, a plea for assistance on the part of some approving and patient man, an indication of the lines on which he might co-operate. The tree does not need gloss for its perfect leaves or fragrance for its flowers, nor need the qualities of its pink wood of wavering figure be extolled. With the exception of the stamens, all parts of the inflorescence, inclusive of the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage, as to show a child his new coat, and forbid him to wear it. I will only be bold with Benedick for his company; for, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]

... into the text in square brackets after the word or phrase they refer to [like this]. (B) Etymological explanations of these words. These are indicted by a number in angle brackets in the marginal gloss.* The note will be found at the *like this end of the poem or section. (C) Longer notes commenting on or explaining the text. These are indicated in the text by numbers in angle brackets thus: . The note will be found at the end of the poem ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... clearly convinced how indisputably it was the code of sanctity, and hence of truth itself; how really unphilosophical it was to take offence at a few little imperfections of style, not less absurd than the vanity of one who despises everything that wears not the gloss of elegant forms; what still greater absurdity to imagine that such a collection of books, so long held in religious veneration, should not possess an authentic origin, boasting, as they do, such a vast superiority over the Koran, and the old ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico

... The incident was thought fit for the purpose, and adopted accordingly. I also suggested the navigation of the ship by the dead men, but do not recollect that I had anything more to do with the scheme of the poem. The gloss with which it was subsequently accompanied was not thought of by either of us at the time, at least not a hint of it was given to me, and I have no doubt it was a gratuitous after-thought. We began the composition together, on that to me memorable evening: I furnished ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... Apuleius de Deo Socr. p. 42, ed. Elm. "Suspicientes in hoc perfectissimo mundi, ut ait Ennius, clypeo," whence, as I have already observed in my notes on the passage, there is little doubt that Ennius wrote "in altisono mundi clypeo," of which coeli was a gloss, naturally introduced by those who were ignorant of the use of mundus in the same sense. The same error has taken place in some of the MSS. of Virg. Georg. i. 5, 6. Compare the commentators on Pompon. Mela. i. ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides

... sulphate neutralizer. First paint coat shall be wall size and primer. Second coat two parts flat wall paint & one part size. Finish with egg-shell wall paint. Plaster cornice to receive first coat of size, second coat half size & half enamel. Finish coat semi-gloss enamel. ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton

... I had put him in the right light and position, and had seated myself opposite to him, he changed the subject of conversation, and asked me, a little confusedly as I thought, if it was not a customary practice among portrait-painters to gloss over the faults in their sitters' faces, and to make as much as possible of any good points which ...
— Stories By English Authors: France • Various

... weaker. Some disputants endued with great intelligence fell upon the position urged by others like hawks darting at meat thrown up into the air, while some amongst them versed in the interpretations of religious treatises and others of rigid vows, and well-acquainted with every commentary and gloss engaged themselves in pleasant converse. And, O king, that platform crowded with gods, Brahmanas and great Rishis looked extremely handsome like the wide expanse of the firmament studded with stars. O monarch, there was then no Sudra near that platform of Yudhisthira's mansion, nor anybody ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... was little chance to satisfy such craving in Wetona, but she managed to find certain means. The travelling men from the Burke House just across the street used to drop in at the Bijou for an evening's entertainment. They usually sat well toward the front, and Terry's expert playing, and the gloss of her black hair, and her piquant profile as she sometimes looked up toward the stage for a signal from one of the performers, caught their ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... many inconsistencies in life that at times one is appalled. Take marriage, for instance:—A young woman marries a man who is tottering on the brink of the grave; old, blaze, a worn-out roue; but with money enough to gild and gloss the antiquated ruin. She goes before a clergyman and promises to love, honour and obey. Yes; she loves the luxury with which she will be surrounded, the glitter of diamonds, the equipages, the great house, all the ...
— Wise or Otherwise • Lydia Leavitt

... tight pair of black silk pantaloons, which shine as if varnished. They must have been made of the stuff called "everlasting," or perhaps of the same piece as Christian's garments in the Pilgrim's Progress, for he put them on two summers ago, and has not yet worn the gloss off. I have taken a great liking to those black silk pantaloons. But, now, with nods and greetings among friends, each matron takes her husband's arm, and paces gravely homeward, while the girls also flutter away, after arranging sunset walks ...
— Sunday at Home (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... which Dirk had landed was illuminated by lights which simulated sunshine, and their soft bright glow revealed the violet hue of her eyes and the shimmering gloss of her silken hair. She wore a sleeveless, light blue tunic which was gathered around her waist ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... that you accuse yourself before others, but I would have you obey the prophet who says: "Disclose thy self before God." Therefore confess your sins before God, the true Judge, with prayer. Tell your errors, not with the tongue, but with the memory of your conscience, etc. And the Gloss (Of Repentance, Distinct. V, Cap. Consideret) admits that Confession is of human right only [not commanded by Scripture, but ordained by the Church]. Nevertheless, on account of the great benefit of absolution, and ...
— The Confession of Faith • Various

... Good-bye! If we are not lucky enough to light upon some empty cottages to sleep in I fancy the gloss will be taken out of this uniform before I see you again." He picked up his cap, ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty

... down the long grassy arcade towards the stranger, who was sitting on a gray slab under an enormous willow. She was certainly very pretty, with a vivid, irregular, bewitching type of prettiness. There was a gloss as of brown nuts on her satin-smooth hair and a soft, ripe glow on her round cheeks. Her eyes were big and brown and velvety, under oddly-pointed black brows, and her crooked mouth was rose-red. She wore a smart brown suit, with two very modish little shoes peeping from ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... are present on almost every page of De los nombres de Cristo. Nobody can read far without perceiving that Marcello, hindered by his poca salud y muchas occupaciones, is manifestly a double of Luis de Leon; there are passages which gloss themes developed metrically elsewhere; there are retrospicient glances at the Valladolid trial; the scene of the dialogue is laid within view of La Flecha, and the details of the landscape are reproduced ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

... his cut-throat Quartier Montmartre, I, the negative; drew it a little into more polished circles where wit and talent sparkled. The Vicomte D'Haberville, a French d'Argentenaye, took us to a reception—not too proud of us I daresay, for the gloss of his shoes and the magnificence of his cravat outshone us as the sleek skin of a race-horse does a country filly. Especially did he eye Quinet a little coldly, so that I could scarcely persuade the proud fellow ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... with her English accent. Then she arranged the shawl about her shoulders and looked at herself in the glass. The proprietor took it to the light, gathered it up in his hands, smoothed it out, showed the gloss on it, played on it as Liszt plays on ...
— Gaudissart II • Honore de Balzac

... taking half an hour to prepare for departure, and the departing canoe a beautiful object. But they left behind, on all the shore, the blemishes of their stay—old rags, dried boughs, fragments of food, the marks of their fires. Nature likes to cover up and gloss over spots and scars, but it would take her some time to restore that beach to the state it ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller

... new topper, John, when we reach Penzance," said Syd, as he noted how the moisture was ruffling the silk and dimming its gloss. He laughed as he said it, but, in the silence, his laugh ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... near the river itself that even I might have thrown a stone from any one of them into Surrey. The inlet was empty and ill-smelling; there was a crazy landing-stage, and the many windows overlooking us had the black gloss of empty darkness within. Seen by starlight with a troubled eye, the house had one salient feature in the shape of a square tower, which stood out from the facade fronting the river, and rose to nearly twice the height of the main roof. But this curious excrescence only added to the forbidding ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... cases, foolish men have set to work to make, in six months, their diamond of nature, the exact cut and gloss of other men's pastes, and, nervously watching the process, have suffered torture; luckily Charles Gatty was not wise enough for this; he saw nature had distinguished her he loved beyond her fellows; here, as elsewhere, he had faith in nature—he believed that Christie ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade

... Kennedy squarely in the eye again, and we all understood what it was he meant that was at stake. It might be possible after all to gloss over almost anything and win the election, but none of us dared to think what it might mean if Miss Ashton not only suspected that Carton had been fraternizing with the bosses but also that there had been or by ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... marginal gloss to Nashes Lenten Stuffe (1599), ed. McKerrow, III, 154, Nashe says: "I having begun but the induction and first act of it, the other four acts without my consent or the best guess of my drift or scope, by the ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... have wrongly rendered this verse, notwithstanding the help they have derived from Nilakantha's gloss. The fact is, the gloss itself sometimes requires a gloss. Verses 3 and 4 and connected with each other. In verse 3, the speaker mentions two analogies viz., first, that of iron, which is inanimate, following the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... the Cabinet present. The Sultan spoke French well and seems clever as well as most gracious and friendly. He assured me that the Turkish Forts at the Dardanelles were absolutely impregnable. The words "absolute" and "impregnable" don't impress me overmuch. They are only human opinions used to gloss over flaws in the human knowledge or will. Nothing is impregnable either—that's a sure thing. No reasons were given ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... composed under Burke's eye, and was more or less touched by Johnson. It was, indeed, a work after Johnson's own heart, intended to be a pendant, or perhaps a corrective, to Goldsmith's 'Deserted Village.' It is meant to give the bare blank facts of rural life, stripped of all sentimental gloss. To read the two is something like hearing a speech from an optimist landlord and then listening to the comments of Mr. Arch. Goldsmith, indeed, was far too exquisite an artist to indulge in mere conventionalities ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen

... partly know my regard for her; and from these premises you may easily draw the inference that her company, when once obtained, is too valuable to be wasted for a moment. One woman can appreciate the value of another better than a man can do. Men very often only see the outside gloss which dazzles in prosperity, women have opportunities for closer observation, and they learn to value those qualities which are ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... struggled in vain to free itself, and Kallolo brought it to me in triumph. It was, he told me, called the oven-bird, because it walks over those enormous leaves shaped like the pans used for baking the mandioca. I at once recognised it as the jacana. It had black plumage, with a greenish gloss; its legs were very long and slight, as were its toes and claws, especially the hind toe. The body, though it appeared large, was of a singularly light construction, so that it weighs but little when pressing on the floating leaves. Indeed, on measuring it we found that it was about ten inches ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... had really beautiful eyes, a somewhat elastic mouth, and a straight nose well powdered to gloss over its chronic redness. Her teeth were genuine and she cultivated what society novelists term silvery peals of laughter. In every way she accentuated or obliterated nature in her efforts to render ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume



Words linked to "Gloss" :   smoothen, interpret, render, glaze, French polish, refulgence, rationalize, excuse, gloss over, justify, radiancy, effulgence, color of law, pretext, face value, explanation, polish, visual aspect, wordbook, smoothness, disguise, appearance, simulacrum, radiance, burnish, colour of law, pretence, rede, apologize, smooth, pretense, translate, camouflage, guise, shine, semblance, apologise, rationalise, rub, account, refulgency, verisimilitude



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