Word.ws English Dictionary

glide

/ˈɡlaɪd/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northumbria/ˈɡlɛɪd/

glide verb: to move softly, smoothly, or effortlessly.

glide: to move softly, smoothly, or effortlessly
Image: Cecilia Hemming, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

glide (third-person singular simple present glides, present participle gliding, simple past glided or glid or (archaic) glode, past participle glided or glid or (archaic) glode or glidden)

  1. (intransitive) To move softly, smoothly, or effortlessly.
    • The river glideth at his own sweet will:1807, William Wordsworth, “Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802 (Sonnet 14)”, in Poems, in Two Volumes, volume I, London: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, […], →OCLC
    • It is odd how easily the common-places of morality or of sentiment glide off in conversation. Well, they are "exceedingly helpful," and so Lord Avonleigh found them.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 137
    Synonyms:
    coast, slide
  2. (intransitive) To fly unpowered, as of an aircraft. Also relates to gliding birds and flying fish.
    • The tide was out, and we drew up amid the strong bracing smell of seaweed, with gulls screeching, wheeling around, and gliding on the wind.1947 January and February, O. S. Nock, “"The Aberdonian" in Wartime”, in Railway Magazine, page 8
  3. (transitive) To cause to glide.
  4. To pass with a glide, as the voice.

Noun

glide (plural glides)

  1. The act of gliding.
    • With stealthy glide he approached the door of his master's room, listened, cautiously peeped in, then entered.1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London
  2. A transitional sound, especially a semivowel.
  3. An attack or preparatory movement made by sliding down the opponent’s blade, keeping it in constant contact.
  4. A bird, the glede or kite.
  5. A kind of cap affixed to the base of the legs of furniture to prevent it from damaging the floor while being moved.
  6. The joining of two sounds without a break.
  7. A smooth and sliding step in dancing the waltz.

Proper noun capitalized: Glide

Glide

  1. A census-designated place in Douglas County, Oregon, United States.

glide meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

glide in Hindi

to glide, crawl along
सरसराना sarsarāna

glide in Tamil

இழைந்து நழுவிச் செல், நழுவிச் செல், நழுவு, நரம்புக்கட்டி

glide in Urdu

بلا زور لگائے اڑنا, پھسلنا

glide in Malayalam

തെന്നിപ്പോവുക, യന്ത്രശക്തികൂടാതെ പറക്കുക, മന്ദമായി ഒഴുകുക
More languagesFewer languages
glide in Kannada
ತೇಲು tēlu
glide in Punjabi
ਗਲਾਈਡ ਕਰਨ ਲਈ
glide in Odia
ଗ୍ଲିଡ୍ କରିବା ପାଇଁ, ଗ୍ଲିଡ୍ କରିବାକୁ
glide in Sanskrit
ध्रजति dhrajati
glide in Nepali
ग्लिड गर्न, ग्लाइड गर्न
glide in Malay
geluncuran
glide in Indonesian
luncuran
glide in Thai
ร่อน rɔ̂n
glide in Vietnamese
lướt, lượn, liệng

Examples of glide in a sentence

  • The water over which the boats glided was black and smooth, rising into huge foamless billows, the more terrible because they were silent.1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of His Natural Life, Chapter VI:
  • But it was 37-year-old Giggs who looked like a care-free teenager as he glided across the pitch he knows so well to breathtaking effect.2011 January 22, “Man Utd 5 - 0 Birmingham”, in BBC:

All 40 example sentences with glide

Synonyms of glide

Forms of glide

Verb
third-person singular presentglides
present participlegliding
pastglided
pastglid
past participleglided
past participleglid
past participleglidden
past (archaic)glode
past participle (archaic)glode
Noun
pluralglides

Past tense of glide: glided or glid

Plural of glide: glides

Origin of glide

From Middle English gliden, from Old English glīdan, from Proto-West Germanic *glīdan, from Proto-Germanic *glīdaną, from Proto-Indo-European *gʰleydʰ-. Cognate with West Frisian glide, glydzje, Low German glieden, Dutch glijden, German gleiten, Norwegian Nynorsk gli, Danish glide, Swedish glida, Finnish liitää.

Words formed from glide

Phrases with glide

Words that rhyme with glide

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about glide

What does glide mean?
Glide means to move softly, smoothly, or effortlessly.
What is glide in Hindi?
Glide in Hindi is सरसराना (sarsarāna). See Glide meaning in Hindi.
How do you use glide in a sentence?
The water over which the boats glided was black and smooth, rising into huge foamless billows, the more terrible because they were silent.
What part of speech is glide?
Glide can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce glide?
Glide is pronounced /ˈɡlaɪd/.
What is the past tense of glide?
The past tense of glide is glided.

Words near glide in the dictionary

  1. gliddered
  2. gliddering
  3. glidders
  4. gliddery
  5. Gliddon
  6. glide
  7. glide bomb
  8. glide bombed
  9. glide bombing
  10. glide bombs
  11. glide kip

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: glide (page history and authors); Glide (page history and authors); सरसराना (Hindi) (page history and authors); glide (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); glide (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); glide (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ತೇಲು (Kannada) (page history and authors); glide (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); glide (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); glide (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-glide.wav.

Cite this entry: “glide.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/glide. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.