Definition of "gloze" in English

noun

1. A comment in the margin; explanatory note; gloss; commentary.

   • 1903, Cuthbert Atchley, The Parish Clerk, and his Right to Read the Liturgical Epistle, Alcuin Club Tracts IV, London: Longmans, Green & Co., p. 15, The state of practice in the first half of the fifteenth century may be gathered from the gloze of Nicholas de Tudeschis, called Panormitan, on the text Ut quisque which we have quoted above.

2. Flattery.

3. (False) appearance.

   • 1859, Leander Clark, “Sonnet No. 6” in Kenridge Hall, and Other Poems, Washington: Franklin Philp, p. 72, Wear not the mask of Love upon thy face, For fear my eye discern; ’twere better veil The sweet serenity Love’s eye would trace, Than with its gloze to make his visage stale.

4. A specious show, a deceit.

verb

1. (literary) To extenuate, explain away, gloss over.

2. To use flattering language.

   • 1810, Joanna Baillie, The Family Legend: A Tragedy, Act 5, Scene 2, pages 126-127. As he pretended, struck, then stern and silent, Till presently assuming, like his father, A courtesy minute and over-studied, He glozed us with his thanks:

3. To smooth over; to palliate by specious explanation.

   • 1906, E. A. Baker, Introduction to Moll Flanders and Roxana, G. Routledge & Sons (New York), p. xviii, …his contempt for every romantic or sentimental motive that would gloze over real causes, and represent the conduct of human beings rather as we would have it to be than as it is…

4. To give a shine to (something or someone).