glib

English

WOTD – 10 August 2007

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlɪb/

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (AU):

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• Rhymes: -ɪb

Etymology 1

Probably modification of Low German glibberig (“slippery”) or a shortening of English slippery.

Adjective

glib (comparative glibber, superlative glibbest)

1. Having a ready flow of words but lacking thought or understanding; superficial; shallow.
2. (dated) Smooth or slippery.

   a sheet of glib ice

3. Artfully persuasive but insincere in nature; smooth-talking, honey-tongued, silver-tongued.

   a glib tongue; a glib speech

   • (Can we date this quote by Shakespeare and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)

     I want that glib and oily art, / To speak and purpose not.

Derived terms

• glibly
• glibness

Translations

having a ready flow of words but lacking thought or understanding

• Bulgarian: словоохотлив (bg) (slovoohotliv)
• French: désinvolte (fr)
• Galician: larapetas m pl, larapeteiro (gl) m, laretas (gl) m pl, lareto (gl) m, lerchán (gl) m, lercho (gl) m, leriante m, lingoreteiro (gl) m, linguateiro (gl) m, paroleiro m, papexón m, zarapelo (gl) m, falabarato (gl) m
• German: schwatzhaft (de), beredsam (de)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: loquace (it), fluente (it)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: glatt (no), litt for veltalende, rappmunnet, rapptunget

• Scottish Gaelic: leamh, cabanta

Smooth or slippery

• Bulgarian: гладък (bg) (gladǎk), плъзгав (plǎzgav)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• German: glatt (de), rutschig (de), schlüpfrig (de)

artfully persuasive but insincere in nature

• German: aalglatt (de), gewandt (de), einschmeichelnd-betrügerisch
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}

Verb

1. (transitive) To make glib.
   • 1628, Joseph Hal, “Christian Liberty Laid Forth,” in The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Hall, D.D., Volume V, London: Williams & Smith, 1808, p. 366, [1]

     There is a drunken liberty of the Tongue; which, being once glibbed with intoxicating liquor, runs wild through heaven and earth; and spares neither him that is God above, nor those which are called gods on earth.

   • 1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 21, lines 371–376:

     And, when to all his Angels he propos'd / To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud, / That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring, / I undertook that office, and the tongues / Of all his flattering Prophets glibb'd with lyes / To his destruction, as I had in charge.

   • 1730, Edward Strother, Dr. Radcliffe’s Practical Dispensatory, London: C. Rivington, p. 342, [2]

     They are good internally in Fits of the Stone in the Kidneys, by glibbing the Ureters, and making even a large Stone pass with ease […]

   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of All Sorts, “Gran’s Battle,” [3]

     We were having one of our bitterest cold snaps. Wind due north, shrieking over stiff land; two feet of snow, all substances glibbed with ice and granite-hard.

Etymology 2

From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Irish glib.

Noun

glib (plural glibs)

1. (historical) A mass of matted hair worn down over the eyes, formerly worn in Ireland.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.8:

     Whom when she saw in wretched weedes disguiz'd, / With heary glib deform'd and meiger face, / Like ghost late risen from his grave agryz'd, / She knew him not […].

   • (Can we date this quote by Spenser and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)

     The Irish have, from the Scythians, mantles and long glibs, which is a thick curled bush of hair hanging down over their eyes, and monstrously disguising them.

   • (Can we date this quote by Southey and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)

     Their wild costume of the glib and mantle.

Etymology 3

Compare Old English and dialect lib to castrate, geld, Danish dialect live, Low German and Old Dutch lubben.

Verb

1. (obsolete) To castrate; to geld; to emasculate.
   • 1623: William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, Act II Scene 1

     Fourteen they shall not see

     To bring false generations. They are co-heirs;

     And I had rather glib myself than they

     Should not produce fair issue.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “glib”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

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Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

From Proto-Slavic *glibъ.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlîːb/

Noun

glȋb m (Cyrillic spelling гли̑б)

1. mud, mire

Declension

Declension of glib

	singular	plural
nominative	glȋb	glíbovi
genitive	gliba	glibova
dative	glibu	glibovima
accusative	glib	glibove
vocative	glibe	glibovi
locative	glibu	glibovima
instrumental	glibom	glibovima