glow

From Middle English glowen, from Old English glōwan, from Proto-Germanic *glōaną, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰel-. Cognate with Saterland Frisian gloie, glöie, gluuje, West Frisian gloeie, Dutch gloeien, German glühen, Danish and Norwegian glo, Icelandic glóa. See also glass.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɡləʊ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɡloʊ/

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• Rhymes: -əʊ

glow (third-person singular simple present glows, present participle glowing, simple past and past participle glowed)

1. To give off light from heat or to emit light as if heated.

   The fire was still glowing after ten hours.

2. To radiate some emotional quality like light.

   The zealots glowed with religious fervor.

   You are glowing from happiness!

   • Dryden

     With pride it mounts, and with revenge it glows.

   • Alexander Pope

     Burns with one love, with one resentment glows.

3. To gaze especially passionately at something.
4. To radiate thermal heat.

   Iron glows red hot when heated to near its melting point.

   After their workout, the gymnasts' faces were glowing red.

5. To shine brightly and steadily.

   The new baby's room glows with bright, loving colors.

   • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 5, in The Mirror and the Lamp:

     Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.

6. (transitive) To make hot; to flush.
   • Shakespeare

     Fans, whose wind did seem / To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool.

7. (intransitive) To feel hot; to have a burning sensation, as of the skin, from friction, exercise, etc.; to burn.
   • Addison

     Did not his temples glow / In the same sultry winds and scorching heats?

   • John Gay

     The cord slides swiftly through his glowing hands.

• glew
• outglow

• gleed

glow (countable and uncountable, plural glows)

1. The state of a glowing object.
   • 1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus:

     The door of the twins' room opposite was open; a twenty-watt night-light threw a weak yellow glow into the passageway. David could hear the twins breathing in time with each other.

2. The condition of being passionate or having warm feelings.
3. The brilliance or warmth of color in an environment or on a person (especially one's face).

   He had a bright red glow on his face.

• gowl, w.l.o.g., wlog

From Old English glīwian.

glow

1. Alternative form of glewen (“to play music, have fun”).

From Old French gluer.

glow

1. Alternative form of glewen (“to glue”).