glance Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a quick look
    coup d'oeil; glimpse.
  2. verb throw a glance at; take a brief look at
    peek; glint.
    • She only glanced at the paper
    • I only peeked--I didn't see anything interesting
  3. verb hit at an angle

WordNet

Glance noun
Etymology
Akin to D. glans luster, brightness, G. glanz, Sw. glans, D. glands brightness, glimpse. Cf. Gleen, Glint, Glitter, and Glance a mineral.
Definitions
  1. A sudden flash of light or splendor.
    Swift as the lightning glance. Milton.
  2. A quick cast of the eyes; a quick or a casual look; a swift survey; a glimpse.
    Dart not scornful glances from those eyes. Shak.
  3. An incidental or passing thought or allusion.
    How fleet is a glance of the mind. Cowper.
  4. (Min.) A name given to some sulphides, mostly dark-colored, which have a brilliant metallic luster, as the sulphide of copper, called copper glance.
Glance intransitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Glanced ; present participle & verbal noun Glancing
Definitions
  1. To shoot or emit a flash of light; to shine; to flash.
    From art, from nature, from the schools, Let random influences glance, Like light in many a shivered lance, That breaks about the dappled pools. Tennyson.
  2. To strike and fly off in an oblique direction; to dart aside. "Your arrow hath glanced". Shak.
    On me the curse aslope Glanced on the ground. Milton.
  3. To look with a sudden, rapid cast of the eye; to snatch a momentary or hasty view.
    The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. Shak.
  4. To make an incidental or passing reflection; to allude; to hint; -- often with at.
    Wherein obscurely Cæsar''s ambition shall be glanced at. Shak.
    He glanced at a certain reverend doctor. Swift.
  5. To move quickly, appearing and disappearing rapidly; to be visible only for an instant at a time; to move interruptedly; to twinkle.
    And all along the forum and up the sacred seat, His vulture eye pursued the trip of those small glancing feet. Macaulay.
Glance transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To shoot or dart suddenly or obliquely; to cast for a moment; as, to glance the eye.
  2. To hint at; to touch lightly or briefly. Obs.
    In company I often glanced it. Shak.

Webster 1913