glosses in English

noun

1

shine or luster on a smooth surface.

hair with a healthy gloss

synonyms: shine, sheen, luster, gleam, patina, brilliance, shimmer

2

a superficially attractive appearance or impression.

beneath the gloss of success was a tragic private life

synonyms: facade, veneer, surface, show, camouflage, disguise, mask, smokescreen, window dressing

3

a translation or explanation of a word or phrase.

For the commonest form of ‘hack’, the OED gives the gloss and etymology.

synonyms: explanation, interpretation, exegesis, explication, elucidation, annotation, note, footnote, commentary, comment, rubric, translation, definition, scholium

verb

1

apply a cosmetic gloss to.

She went natural on the makeup, too, applying just a hint of silvery-lilac shadow to her eyes and glossing up her lips with a frosty pink.

synonyms: make glossy, shine, glaze, polish, burnish

2

try to conceal or disguise (something embarrassing or unfavorable) by treating it briefly or representing it misleadingly.

the social costs of this growth are glossed over

synonyms: conceal, cover up, hide, disguise, mask, veil, shrug off, brush aside, play down, minimize, understate, make light of, brush under the carpet

3

provide an explanation, interpretation, or paraphrase for (a text, word, etc.).

He glosses the term as ‘being a colloquial word for anger’.

synonyms: explain, interpret, explicate, define, elucidate, annotate, translate, paraphrase

noun

shine, sheen, luster, gleam, patina, brilliance, shimmer
facade, veneer, surface, show, camouflage, disguise, mask, smokescreen, window dressing
explanation, interpretation, exegesis, explication, elucidation, annotation, note, footnote, commentary, comment, rubric, translation, definition, scholium
color, semblance
polish, glossiness, burnish
rubric
glossary

verb

make glossy, conceal, explain, comment, color
make glossy, shine, glaze, polish, burnish
conceal, cover up, hide, disguise, mask, veil, shrug off, brush aside, play down, minimize, understate, make light of, brush under the carpet
explain, interpret, explicate, define, elucidate, annotate, translate, paraphrase
comment, annotate
color

Use "glosses" in a sentence

1. Time inevitably glosses over the particularities of each situation.

2. Quoted phrases, distinguishing direct speech, quotation, terms and glosses, cited phrases etc.

3. 22 Difficult expressions are explained in the glosses at the bottom of the page.

4. The author's tendentious history of the chemical company glosses over its role in one of the most catastrophic environmental accidents in history.

5. Unlike other lexica of the Greek New Testament, which give only brief glosses for headwords, The Concise Greek-English Lexicon offers extended definitions or explanations in

6. Apollonius seems to have carefully studied Homeric glosses, and gives many examples of isolated uses, but his choice of words is by no means limited to Homer

7. An assimilationist melting-pot ideology glosses over real differences of historical experience and fairness. Part, but by no means all, of the attractiveness of the Assimilationist ideal is its clarity and simplicity

8. The report endorses and encourages the process of liberalisation/privatisation in various key sectors and abjectly glosses over the economic and social consequences, from quality and access to public services, to job losses in the targeted sectors.

9. This scholarly work, based on extensive original sources--primary, comprising ancient Sanskrit texts, commentaries and glosses and modern literary pieces, kavyas and plays, as well as critical writings on these original works, studies the origin and development of the institution of Apsarases and

10. ‘An Assimilationist melting-pot ideology glosses over real differences of historical experience and fairness.’ ‘The more Assimilationist you become, the more likely you are to fall back, to become indifferent, to say everything will be okay.’ ‘But in recent decades, the Assimilationist ethic has been badly undermined.’