Glide Meaning
/ˈɡlaɪd/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
verbTo move softly, smoothly, or effortlessly.
verbTo fly unpowered, as of an aircraft. Also relates to gliding birds and flying fish.
Sentence Examples
A bird can glide through the air without moving its wings.
Tom watched the skaters glide across the ice.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The swan began to ____ across the calm lake without a sound.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I watched the eagle ____ effortlessly above the canyon, riding the rising currents of warm morning air.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English gliden, from Old English glīdan, from Proto-West Germanic *glīdan, from Proto-Germanic *glīdaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰleydʰ-. Cognate with West Frisian glide, glydzje, Low German glieden, Dutch glijden, German gleiten, Norwegian Nynorsk gli, Danish glide, Swedish glida, Finnish liitää.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"The river glideth at his own sweet will:"
— 1807, William Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 (Sonnet 14)”, in Poems, in Two Volumes, volume I, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], →OCLC:
"It is odd how easily the common-places of morality or of sentiment glide off in conversation. Well, they are "exceedingly helpful," and so Lord Avonleigh found them."
— 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 137:
"The water over which the boats glided was black and smooth, rising into huge foamless billows, the more terrible because they were silent."
— 1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, Chapter VI:
"But it was 37-year-old Giggs who looked like a care-free teenager as he glided across the pitch he knows so well to breathtaking effect."
— 2011 January 22, “Man Utd 5 - 0 Birmingham”, in BBC:
"The tide was out, and we drew up amid the strong bracing smell of seaweed, with gulls screeching, wheeling around, and gliding on the wind."
— 1947 January and February, O. S. Nock, “"The Aberdonian" in Wartime”, in Railway Magazine, page 8:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The swan began to ____ across the calm lake without a sound.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
I watched the eagle ____ effortlessly above the canyon, riding the rising currents of warm morning air.