- glance
[glance 词源字典] - glance: [15] ‘Touch or deflect lightly’, as in ‘glance off something’ and a ‘glancing blow’, is the primary meaning of glance; ‘look briefly’ did not develop until the 16th century. The word may have originated as an alteration of the Middle English verb glacen ‘glide, slide’ (probably under the influence of Middle English glenten, the ancestor of modern English glint). Glacen was borrowed from Old French glacier ‘slide’, a derivative of glace ‘ice’ (from which English also gets glacier).
=> glacier[glance etymology, glance origin, 英语词源] - glance (n.)
- c. 1500, "a sudden movement producing a flash," from glance (v.). Meaning "brief or hurried look" is from 1590s.
- glance (v.)
- mid-15c., of weapons, "strike obliquely without giving full impact," a nasalized form of glacen "to graze, strike a glancing blow" (c. 1300), from Old French glacier "to slip, make slippery" (compare Old French glaciere "part of a knight's armor meant to deflect blows"), from glace "ice" (see glacial). Sense of "look quickly" (first recorded 1580s) probably was by influence of Middle English glenten "look askance" (see glint (v.)), which also could account for the -n-. Related: Glanced; glancing.
