Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The white of an egg.
- n. A sizing or glaze made of egg white.
- n. A viscous substance resembling egg white.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The white of an egg, used as varnish to preserve painting, and as a size to retain gold in bookbinding and in gilding.
- n. Any viscous transparent substance resembling the white of an egg; hence, any viscous substance.
- To smear with glair or the white of an egg; smear with a viscous substance.
Wiktionary
- n. Egg-white, especially as used in various industrial preparations.
- n. Any viscous, slimy substance.
- v. To smear with egg-white.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The white of egg. It is used as a size or a glaze in bookbinding, for pastry, etc.
- n. Any viscous, transparent substance, resembling the white of an egg.
- n. A broadsword fixed on a pike; a kind of halberd.
- v. To smear with the white of an egg.
Etymologies
- From Old French glaire, from Vulgar Latin *clāria, a substantive use of Latin clārus ("clear"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English glaire, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *clāria, from Latin clārus, clear; see kelə-2 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Then the fox started across the steel-gray glair, picking his steps that he might have a firm foothold.”
“A coating of glair or varnish is found to some extent to protect leather from adverse outside influences, but, unfortunately, both glair and varnish tend rather to harden leather than to keep it flexible, and they fail just where failure is most serious, that is at the joints.”
Bookbinding, and the Care of Books A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians
“In opening and shutting, any coat of glair or varnish that has become hard will crack, and expose the leather of the joint and back.”
Bookbinding, and the Care of Books A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians
“As it has not done so, are we then really, as many contend, the highest expression of the progress accomplished, throughout the ages, by the first atom of glair expanded into a cell?”
“But safety lies within; and behold the atom of animated glair embarking on its struggle with the flint.”
The Life of the fly; with which are interspersed some chapters of autobiography
“The strength and litheness of a clown cannot compare with those of this budding flesh, this hardly coagulated glair.”
“Crawling up the sides, the Snails imprisoned in my apparatus sometimes reach the top, which is closed with a glass pane, and fix themselves to it by means of a speck of glair.”
“It begins with zero in the glair of a cell and ascends until we come to the mighty brain of a Newton.”
“Its appearance was very beautiful; firm and glair; varying in color, and glistening like polished porphyry.”
A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States; With Remarks on Their Economy
“She lifted the scissors the her chest intending to kil her self but the creature stilfed that with a glair.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘glair’.
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phrontistery - g
from phrontistery.info
gabardine, gabbart, gabble, gabbro, gabelle, gabion, gablock, gad, gadarene, gadoid, gadroon, gadzookery and 439 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Unusual words for Words With Friends
A list of words that WWF recognizes as valid - most are unusual words; some are simply high-scoring.
botel, slipe, jeu, chub, chubs, cote, mure, tittle, dev, loo, hoke, helo and 357 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Wordnik Notebooks
All the words from the cover of the Wordnik notebook.
A few words appear twice: frass, cruet, luna, thalweg, and possibly some more.
Careful: Contains spoilers!spilth, frass, fomite, rux, worricow, alizarin, mundungus, parthenocarpy, jib, whinyard, weisure, nimiety and 217 more...
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jameslong's Words
tergiversate, ossify, syncretic, agenbite, enwit, doxy, borborygm, pulchritudinous, oxters, fervid, banal, asinine and 102 more...
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looked up
Words I've come across while reading and looked up in the dictionary.
deesis, pendentive, revetment, aedicule, stemma, patera, ephod, entrepot, corbel, exedra, volute, archivolt and 1406 more...
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conglomeration
wherewithal, wan, zoonotic, zoonosis, nebulous, nefarious, nascent, quiescent, quell, undercroft, unwitting, unutterable and 658 more...
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The word collector
My collection of words that are intriguing, but don't fit my other lists.
snailery, aplasia, postulant, aigrette, caravel, frigate, capeskin, suffusion, schist, varlet, sepulchral, anisotropy and 317 more...
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tallpaul's Words
glair, swithering, maculate, claustral, revetment, pennon, haar, saxifrage, slubbed, imbricate, gleet
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Miscellany, pt. g
gashlycrumb, gravida, ghee, glaucous, groundswell, gruntle, gelid, golden handcuffs, glaikery, glair, gibbet, goldvein and 4 more...
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Wonderfully Specific Adjectives
For those who take articulation to its logical extreme, here you go.
chelonian, lunate, cordiform, ophidian, cuneate, filiform, glair, vitellus, crenate
Tweets
Looking for tweets for glair.
tallpaul Found in the poem 'The Glair' by Robert Robertson from his collection The Swithering Dec 5, 2006