Glade

//ɡleɪd// name, noun, slang

name, noun, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    An open passage through a wood; a grassy open or cleared space in a forest.

    "[…] are creating more "glades," or cleared trails through the woods, for less experienced (blue) skiers. They're a throwback to the first days of skiing, before resorts cut wide swaths of trees, and machines rolled and packed the snow."

  2. 2
    a tract of land with few or no trees in the middle of a wooded area wordnet
  3. 3
    An everglade. colloquial
  4. 4
    An open space in the ice on a river or lake.
  5. 5
    A bright surface of ice or snow.

    "a glade of ice"

Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    A gleam of light. obsolete
  2. 7
    A bright patch of sky; the bright space between clouds. obsolete
Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname.

Example

More examples

"He stops, and from Achates hastes to seize / his chance-brought arms, the arrows and the bow, / the branching antlers smites, and lays the leader low. / Next fall the herd; and through the leafy glade / in mingled rout he drives the scattered train, / plying his shafts."

Etymology

From Middle English glade, glode, glede (“a gleam of light, bright space, an open space; an open or cleared space in a forest; a bright patch of sky; a bright surface of snow or ice”), of uncertain origin, perhaps from Old English *glǣd, *glād, related to Old English glæd (“shining, bright”), (compare Old Norse glaðr (“bright”)).

Related phrases

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.