Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A glowing coal; an ember.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A live or burning coal; a fire; a flame.
  • noun Coal or cinders.
  • noun Same as glede.
  • See gleyed.
  • To burn.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Archaic A live or glowing coal; a glede.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a glowing coal

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English glede, from Old English glēd; see ghel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gleede, glede, from Old English glēd, glēde ("glowing coal, ember, fire, flame, instrument of torture"), from Proto-Germanic *glōdiz (“incandescence, glowing ember, burning ash”), from Proto-Indo-European *ghlō-, *ghel- (“to shine”). Cognate with Scots gleed ("burning coal, ember"), Eastern Frisian glode ("blaze, fire"), Dutch gloed ("glow, blaze"), German Glut ("ember"), Scots glude ("glow from a fire"). More at glow.

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Examples

  • At any rate, I have now gleed myself into hyperdrive and I must calm down in order to get some work done today.

    Hear Ye, Hear Ye 2006

  • Forsooth she wondered that the stark and gruff old man was so changed to her in little space; for nought she knew as yet how the sight of her cast a hot gleed of love into the hearts of them who beheld her.

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles 2007

  • The significance of 34.3, ‘Then throw me into well water,’ is lost in the present version, by the position of the line _after_ the ‘burning gleed,’ as it seems the reciter regarded the well-water merely as a means of extinguishing the gleed.

    Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series Frank Sidgwick

  • But the heat is none the less for that; rather the heat lasts longer below the gleed than above it.

    Cligés. English de Troyes Chr��tien

  • Their love grows and increases continually; but the one feels shame before the other; and each conceals and hides this love so that neither flame nor smoke is seen from the gleed beneath the ashes.

    Cligés. English de Troyes Chr��tien

  • It is only necessary to remark, that the orthodox method of "coaling," or setting the brandy on fire, was effected by dropping "a live coal" ( "_gleed_") or red-hot cinder into the brandy.

    Notes and Queries, Number 28, May 11, 1850 Various

  • I should see and heare some Oracles from the heavens, and from the gleed of the Sun.

    The Golden Asse Lucius Apuleius

  • "I'll bet you they thought we were on board!" gleed Coutlass.

    The Ivory Trail Mundy, Talbot, 1879-1940 1920

  • "I'll bet you they thought we were on board!" gleed Coutlass.

    The Ivory Trail Talbot Mundy 1909

  • Forsooth she wondered that the stark and gruff old man was so changed to her in little space; for nought she knew as yet how the sight of her cast a hot gleed of love into the hearts of them who beheld her.

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles William Morris 1865

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