Glede
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Any of several birds of prey, especially a kite, Milvus milvus.
- 2 A live coal; an ember.
"1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit [Chapter 14 - Fire and Water], His last throes splintered it to sparks and gledes."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit [Chapter 14 - Fire and Water], His last throes splintered it to sparks and gledes."
Etymology
From Middle English glede, from Old English glida, from Proto-West Germanic *glidā, from Proto-Germanic *glidǭ; akin to Icelandic gleða, Swedish glada. Compare glide.
From Middle English gleede, glede, from Old English glēd, glēde (“glowing coal, ember, fire, flame, instrument of torture”), from Proto-West Germanic *glōdi, from Proto-Germanic *glōdiz (“incandescence, glowing ember, burning ash”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃- (“to shine”). Cognate with Scots gleed (“burning coal, ember”), Saterland Frisian Gloud (“blaze, fire”), Dutch gloed (“glowing heat”), German Glut (“glowing heat, embers”), Swedish glöd (“embers”), Scots glude (“glow from a fire”). More at glow.
Related phrases
More for "glede"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.