gleg

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlɛɡ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛɡ

Etymology 1

Verb

gleg (third-person singular simple present glegs, present participle glegging, simple past and past participle glegged)

1. (Northern England) To glance.

Synonyms

• See Thesaurus:glance

Noun

gleg (plural glegs)

1. (now rare, Northern England) A look or glance.
   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     And besides, you'd do the tomb so well. Everybody feels as if they want a gleg at the skeleton in your vault.

     Penguin 2006, p. 308

Etymology 2

Variant forms.

Noun

gleg (plural glegs)

1. Alternative form of cleg

Etymology 3

Adjective

gleg (comparative glegger, superlative gleggest)

1. (Scotland) Smart; quick; brisk.
   • 1856, Thomas Hamilton, The Youth and Manhood of Cyril Thornton, page 279:

     One patted her neck, and assured her she was the gleggest and bonniest young thing she had ever seen.

Anagrams

• Legg

Scots

Etymology

Possibly ultimately related to Irish glicc (“shrewd, acute”), Ancient Greek καλχαίνω (kalkhaínō, “to ponder”), Proto-Germanic *klōkaz (“quick, smart”), Middle English begalewen (“to frighten, stupefy”).^[1][2]

Adjective

gleg (comparative mair gleg, superlative maist gleg)

1. smart, quick, brisk
2. alert, quick-witted, keen in sight, hearing, etc.
   • 1836 Joanna Baillie, Witchcraft. Act 1. p13.

     'When she begins to mutter wi' her white wuthered lips, and her twa gleg eyen are glowering like glints o' wildfire frae the hollow o' her dark bent brows, she 's enough to mak a trooper quake; ay, wi' baith swurd and pistol by his side.'

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

3. intelligent, adroit, skilful
4. (of blades, points, etc) sharp

Derived terms

• gleg-lugged
• gleg-gabbit

References

http://www.dsl.ac.uk/

1. MacBain, Alexander, Mackay, Eneas (1911) “gleg”, in An Etymological Dictionary of the Gaelic Language‎, Stirling, →ISBN, page glic
2. van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “kloek2”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute