glim

From Middle English glim, glimme (“radiance; shining brightness”), of uncertain further origin. Perhaps from Old English gleomu (“splendor”) and/or Old Norse *glim, *glima, both apparently from Proto-Germanic *glimō, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰley- (“to gleam, shimmer, glow”). Compare Norwegian glim, dialectal Old Swedish glim, glimma.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ɡlɪm/

glim (countable and uncountable, plural glims)

1. (obsolete) brightness; splendour
2. (archaic, slang) A light; a candle; a lantern; a fire.
   • 1837, Dickens, Charles, chapter 16, in Oliver Twist:

     'Let's have a glim,' said Sikes, 'or we shall go breaking our necks, or treading on the dog. Look after your legs if you do!'

   • 1851, Melville, Herman, chapter 3, in Moby-Dick:

     "Come along here, I'll give ye a glim in a jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards me, offering to lead the way.

   • 1883, Stevenson, Robert Louis, chapter 5, in Treasure Island:

     'Sure enough, they left their glim here,' said the fellow from the window.

3. (archaic, slang) An eye.
4. (archaic, slang) A pair of glasses or spectacles.
5. (archaic, slang) A look; a glimpse.
6. (archaic, slang) Gonorrhea
7. (archaic, slang) Fake documents claiming the loss of property by fire (for use in begging).
   • 1851, Mayhew, Henry, “Of the 'Screevers,' or Writers of Begging-Letters and Petitions”, in London Labour and the London Poor‎, volume 1, page 312:

     Tayler Tom lent me a shillin wish I send inklosed and yu must porn sumthing for anuther shilling and get Joe the Loryer to rite a fake for William not a glim (loss by fire) but a brakd say as e ad a hors fell downe with the mad staggurs an broke all is plates and dishes an we are starvin you can sa that the children is got the mesuls […]

• (eye): glimflashy (“angry”)

glim (third-person singular simple present glims, present participle glimming, simple past and past participle glimmed)

1. (obsolete, transitive) To brand on the hand.
   • 1714, Memoirs of the Right Villainous John Hall:

     Profligate women were glimm'd for that villany.

2. (dated, slang) To illuminate.
3. (dated, slang) To see; to observe.
   • 1918, West, Tommy, The Long, Long Trail in the World of Sport:

     About 9 o'clock he showed up and he knew me the moment he glimmed me.

   • 1943 December 11, “Pipes for Pitchmen”, in Billboard‎, page 55:

     Heibers further states he glimmed the following on Maxwell Street on a Sunday morning […]

• Farmer, John Stephen (1893) Slang and Its Analogues‎, volume 3, pages 153–155

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪm

glim

1. first-person singular present indicative of glimmen
2. imperative of glimmen