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glade

UK/ɡleɪd/US/ɡleɪd/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,305 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: glades

A glade is a sunny open space among trees. A woodland glade, sunlight in the glade, a clearing or glade.

The light is the point of the word: a glade is bright where a clearing is merely open, and the two are not quite the same. Such gaps matter ecologically, because many woodland flowers and butterflies need the sun that reaches the floor there.

Elwhajeff (talk) · Public domain

Definitions of glade

  1. 1noungladeA sunny open space among trees.C1

    “We had our picnic in a sunny glade in the middle of the forest.”

glade is an open space.

Where it comes from

Middle English glade meant a bright patch, probably related to glad in its older sense of shining.

  1. Old English

    *glǣd

  2. Middle English

    glade

  3. English, today

    glade

Built from

  • glede · Middle English — 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

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 unknown origin, perhaps from Old English glǣd, glād, related to Old English glæd (“shining, bright”), (compare Old Norse glaðr (“bright”)).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Nature & Weather

Practise this word

glade in the wild

  • In the most general sense, a glade or clearing is an open area within a forest.

    Glade (geography)

  • Due to the shallow soil and the extreme conditions created by it, trees are often unable to grow in the glades.

    Calcareous glade

  • Glade skiing (also known as glading) is alpine skiing through trees off-trail or on a defined woods trail.

    Glade skiing

  • Glade skiing is inherently more dangerous than skiing on trails and usually reserved for experts, though moderate glade terrain exists.

    Glade skiing

  • The community was so named on account of the marshy glades near the original town site.

    Glade Farms, West Virginia

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.