glee
/ɡliː/
glee noun: joy; happiness; great delight, especially from one's own good fortune or from another's misfortune.
Noun
glee (countable and uncountable, plural glees)
- Joy; happiness; great delight, especially from one's own good fortune or from another's misfortune.
- I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made.1968, “Sympathy for the Devil”, in The Rolling Stones (music), Beggars Banquet
- Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort...2013 June 29, “Travels and travails”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 55
- Synonyms:
- merriment, mirth, gaiety, gloat, blitheness, blithesomeness, cheerfulness, cheeriness, contentness, contentedness
- Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
- An unaccompanied part song for three or more solo voices, not necessarily merry.
- Sometimes they had glees, when Captain Strong’s chest was of vast service, and he boomed out in a prodigious bass, of which he was not a little proud.1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 23, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
Verb
glee (third-person singular simple present glees, present participle gleeing, simple past and past participle gleed)
- To sing a glee (unaccompanied part song).
glee meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
glee in Tamil
- மகிழ்ச்சி, எக்களிப்பு
glee in Urdu
- خوشی, مسرت, سرور
glee in Bengali
- চরম আনন্দ, প্রফুল্লতা, উল্লাস
glee in Malayalam
- ആനന്ദം, ഉല്ലാസം, ആഹ്ലാദം, ബാലസഹജമായ ആമോദനം
More languagesFewer languages
- glee in Kannada
- ಹಿಗ್ಗು, ಉಲ್ಲಾಸ, ಹರ್ಷ, ಸಂತೋಷ
- glee in Tagalog
- saya, ligaya, galak, tuwa
- glee in Arabic
- بَهْجَة bahja
- glee in Persian
- شادی
- glee in Thai
- ความยินดี kwaam-yin-dii, ความสะใจ
Examples of glee in a sentence
- The young girl dimpled in glee as she was handed a cupcake.
- Given his father’s ghastly demise, one would not expect such glee from the ascendant to his throne.
- She ran down the hill, windmilling her arms with glee.
Synonyms of glee
- merriment
- mirth
- gaiety
- gloat
- blitheness
- blithesomeness
- cheerfulness
- cheeriness
- contentness
- contentedness
27 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of glee
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | glees |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | glees |
| present participle | gleeing |
| past participle | gleed |
| past | gleed |
Origin of glee
From Middle English gle, from Old English glēo, glīġ, glēow, glīw (“glee, pleasure, mirth, play, sport; music; mockery”), from Proto-West Germanic *glīw, from Proto-Germanic *glīwą (“joy, mirth”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰlew- (“to joke, make fun, enjoy”). Cognate with Scots gle, glie, glew (“game, play, sport, mirth, joy, rejoicing, entertainment, melody, music”), Icelandic glý (“joy, glee, gladness”), Ancient Greek χλεύη (khleúē, “joke, jest, scorn”). A poetic word in Middle English, the word was obsolete by 1500, but revived late 18c.
From Middle English gleen, glewen, from Old English glēowian (“to sing, play an instrument, jest”), from Proto-West Germanic *glīwōn, from Proto-Germanic *glīwōną. Cognate with Icelandic glýja (“to be gleeful”).
Words formed from glee
Phrases with glee
Words that rhyme with glee
Questions about glee
- What does glee mean?
- Glee means joy; happiness; great delight, especially from one's own good fortune or from another's misfortune.
- What is glee in Tamil?
- Glee in Tamil is மகிழ்ச்சி, எக்களிப்பு. See Glee meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is glee?
- Glee can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce glee?
- Glee is pronounced /ɡliː/.
- What is the plural of glee?
- The plural of glee is glees.
Words near glee in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: glee (page history and authors); glee (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); glee (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Glee (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); glee (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); glee (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-glee.wav.
Cite this entry: “glee.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/glee. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.