glow

See also: głow, głów, and Głów

English

WOTD – 30 December 2025

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

The verb is derived from Middle English glouen, glowen (“to give off heat and light without flame; of a thing: to be heated until red hot; to be brightly coloured; to shine brightly; (figurative) to be filled with emotion; of the face, etc.: to turn red, flush; etc.”),[1] and then either:[2]

both from Proto-Germanic *glōaną (“to glow”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰleh₁- (“to shine, glow; to be shining, glowing”). Possibly a doublet of glass.

The noun is derived from the verb.[4]

cognates

Verb

glow (third-person singular simple present glows, present participle glowing, simple past glowed or (dialectal) glew, past participle glowed or (dialectal) glew or (dialectal) glown)

  1. (intransitive)
    2. To emit heat and light without a flame.
      Iron glows red hot when heated to near its melting point.
    3. Of a fire: to emit heat and light.
      The fire was still glowing after ten hours.
      • 1717, Joseph Addison, “Book II. [The Story of Phaeton.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 40:
        The mettled Steeds, vvhen from their Noſtrils flovvs / The ſcorching Fire, that in their Entrails glovvs.
      • 1854 March, James Russell Lowell, “A Winter-evening Hymn to My Fire”, in Under the Willows and Other Poems, Boston, Mass.: Fields, Osgood, & Co., successors to Ticknor and Fields, published 1869, →OCLC, stanza I, page 161:
        To-night will I pure Magian be, / Hymns to thy [a fire's] sole honor raising, / While thou leapest fast and faster, / Wild with self-delighted glee, / Or sink'st low and glowest faintly / As an aureole still and saintly, / Keeping cadence to my praising / Thee! still thee! and only thee!
      • 1859, [Martha Perry Lowe], “A Song of the Sun. Seville.”, in The Olive and the Pine, Boston, Mass.: Crosby, Nichols, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 8:
        The Sun, how it gloweth, all day gloweth down, / On the gray of thy turrets, O wonderful town!
    4. To emit light brightly and steadily as if heated to a high temperature; to shine.
      • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC, signature [N4], verso, lines 604–605:
        [N]ovv glovv'd the Firmament / VVith living Saphirs: […]
      • 1715, [Alexander] Pope, The Temple of Fame: A Vision, London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 17:
        The Temple ſhakes, the ſounding Gates unfold, / VVide Vaults appear, and Roofs of fretted Gold: / […] / Of bright, tranſparent Beryl vvere the VValls, / The Freezes Gold, and Gold the Capitals: / As Heaven vvith Stars, the Roof vvith Jevvels glovvs, / And ever living Lamps depend in Rovvs.
    5. To be very hot; also, to be on fire; to burn.
      • 1697, Virgil, “The First Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 59, lines 322–323:
        [T]he torrid Zone / Glovvs vvith the paſſing and repaſſing Sun.
      • 1789, [Erasmus Darwin], “Canto II”, in The Botanic Garden; a Poem, in Two Parts. […], London: J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1791, →OCLC, part II (The Loves of the Plants; 3rd edition), pages 61–62, lines 283–288:
        Firſt vvith nice eye emerging Naiads cull / From leathery pods the vegetable vvool [cotton]; / VVith vviry teeth revolving cards releaſe / The tangled knots, and ſmooth the ravell'd fleece; / […] / Then fly the ſpoles, the rapid axles glovv, / And ſlovvly circumvolves the labouring vvheel belovv.
      • 1842, [Edward Bulwer-Lytton], chapter XIII, in Zanoni. […], volume III, London: Saunders & Otley, […], →OCLC, 7th book (The Reign of Terror), page 257:
        [N]ow, evermore, till thy long race is run, mine eyes shall glow into thy brain, and mine arms shall clasp thee, when thou wouldst take the wings of the Morning, and flee from the embrace of Night!
    6. (figurative)
      1. Of a colour: to be bright; also, of a thing: to have a bright colour.
        The new baby’s room glows with bright, loving colours.
      2. Of a person: to display intense emotion.
        The zealots glowed with religious fervor.
        You are glowing from happiness!
      3. Of a person's body or a part of it: to feel hot and often to flush (“become suffused with a reddish colour”) as well, due to an emotional response, exertion, etc.
        After their workout, the gymnasts’ faces were glowing.
      4. (chiefly US, Internet slang) To be involved in an (chiefly online) undercover sting operation, especially by American federal agencies.
        • 2018 August 26, anonymous author, “Cryptographic Crumpling: The Encryption ‘Middle Ground’ for Government Surveillance”, in alt.privacy‎[1] (Usenet):
          If this post glows any brighter I'm going to need sunglasses. 😄🕶👌
      5. (chiefly US, Internet slang, alt-right) To create a threatening online post that may involve violence, and look suspicious enough to attract a police investigation.
        Coordinate term: fedpost
  2. (transitive)
    1. (archaic or obsolete) To emit (flame).
    2. (figurative, Internet slang, alt-right) To expose (someone) to the authorities.
    3. (obsolete) To make (something) hot; to heat.
Conjugation
Conjugation of glow
infinitive (to) glow
present tense past tense
1st-person singular glow glowed
2nd-person singular glow, glowest† glowed, glowedst†
3rd-person singular glows, gloweth† glowed
plural glow
subjunctive glow glowed
imperative glow —
participles glowing glowed

† Archaic or obsolete.

Derived terms
Translations
of a person’s body or a part of it: to feel hot and often to flush as well
to create a threatening online post that may involve violence, and look suspicious enough to attract a police investigation
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Noun

glow (countable and uncountable, plural glows)

  1. A state of heat and light being emitted by a hot object.
    • 1827, [John Keble], “Fourth Sunday after Easter”, in The Christian Year: Thoughts in Verse for the Sundays and Holydays throughout the Year, volume I, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] [B]y W. Baxter, for J. Parker; and C[harles] and J[ohn] Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 171:
      The struggling spark of good within, / Just smother'd in the strife of sin, / They quicken to a timely glow, / The pure flame spreading high and low.
      A figurative use.
    • 1847, R[alph] W[aldo] Emerson, “Woodnotes”, in Poems, Boston, Mass.: James Munroe and Company, →OCLC, part II, page 75:
      My garden is the cloven rock, / And my manure the snow; / And drifting sand-heaps feed my stock, / In summer's scorching glow.
    • 1953, Samuel Beckett, chapter II, in Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC, page 114:
      [T]he light, though hidden by the corner, shone through the passage window and made a glow, in the air, a glow that could be seen, especially when the night was dark, from no less a distance than ten or fifteen paces. Thus all that Art and Con had to do, when the night was favourable, was to advance a little way along the avenue, until they reached the place whence the light, if it was burning, must be visible, as a glow, a feeble glow, in the air, and thence to go on, towards the back door, or to go back, towards the gate, as the case might be.
    • 1994, Stephen Fry, chapter 2, in The Hippopotamus, London: Quality Paperbacks Direct, page 23:
      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. A state of heat being emitted by a person or an animal's body.
  3. A state of light being emitted by something (for example, a bioluminescent animal or fungus, or a mineral) which is not hot; luminescence.
    Hyponyms: bioluminescence, fluorescence
    • 2025 December 9, Veronique Greenwood, “Your Bedroom Probably Isn’t Dark Enough”, in Time‎[2], New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 9 December 2025:
      So if you find yourself regularly up late at night, basking in the TV's glow, you might be doing more than just depriving yourself of sleep.
  4. (figurative)
    1. A state of brightness or warmth of colour; specifically, a reddish colour on a person's face indicating health or youth; a flush.
      He had a bright red glow on his face.
    2. A condition of being passionate or having warm feelings; an ardour.
      • 1815 March (date written), Lord Byron, “Stanzas for Music”, in Poems, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; by W[illiam] Bulmer and Co. […], published 1816, →OCLC, stanza 1, page 16:
        There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away, / When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay; […]
      • 1862 July – 1863 August, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], “An Arresting Voice”, in Romola. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published 1863, →OCLC, book II, page 263:
        […] Romola felt herself surrounded and possessed by the glow of his passionate faith.
      • 1864 May – 1865 November, Charles Dickens, “The Golden Dustman Falls into Worse Company”, in Our Mutual Friend. […], volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1865, →OCLC, 3rd book (A Long Lane), page 45:
        "And you come, brother," said Mr. Wegg, in a hospitable glow, "you come like I don't know what—exactly like it—I shouldn't know you from it—shedding a halo all around you."
Derived terms
Translations
state of heat being emitted by a person or an animal’s body
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Etymology 2

From Late Middle English glouen (“to gaze, stare”);[5] further etymology uncertain, possibly either:[6]

  • from glouen, glowen (“to give off heat and light without flame; of a thing: to be heated until red hot; to be brightly coloured; to shine brightly; (figurative) to be filled with emotion; of the face, etc.: to turn red, flush; etc.”); or
  • from Old Norse glóa (“to shine”) (whence Norwegian Nynorsk glo (“to stare”) and Swedish glo (“to stare”)).

See further at etymology 1.

Verb

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

  1. (intransitive, obsolete except UK, dialectal) To look intently; to stare.
Derived terms

References

  1. ^ “glouen, v.(1)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “glow, v.1”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, December 2025; “glow, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  3. ^ Joseph Bosworth (1882), “glówan”, in T[homas] Northcote Toller, editor, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 481, column 2.
  4. ^ “glow, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, September 2025; “glow, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
  5. ^ “glouen, v.(2)”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  6. ^ “glow, v.2”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, June 2025.

Further reading

Anagrams

Cornish

Etymology

From Proto-Brythonic *glọw, from Proto-Celtic *glāwos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰleh₁- + *-wós. Cognate with Welsh glo.

Noun

glow (collective, singulative glowen f)

  1. coal

Derived terms

  • glowbren (“charcoal”)
  • glowor (“collier”)
  • glowva (“colliery”)

Mutation

Mutation of glow
unmutated soft aspirate hard mixed mixed after 'th
glow low unchanged klow unchanged unchanged

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Cornish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Middle English

Etymology 1

Verb

glow

  2. alternative form of glewen (“to play music, have fun”)

Etymology 2

Verb

glow

  2. alternative form of glewen (“to glue”)
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