Other forms: glowing, glows, glowed
To glow is to give out a soft, steady light with no flame on it. The bar of a heater going orange, a phone screen face-up in a dark room, the last of the fire before it dies.
Glow is a noun as well — the glow of a lamp, the orange glow over a city at night, the green glow of the clock at three in the morning. People glow: you glow after a hot bath or a long walk, and somebody can glow with pride or with health. Said of a report or a review, glowing means full of praise, as in a glowing reference from an old boss. The thing to keep straight is that a glow is steady and flameless. A candle burns and a broken bulb flickers; only the quiet, even light glows.
1verbglowTo give out a soft steady light, with no flame.~44%
“The heater glowed orange in the corner.”
2nounsoftThe soft light a thing gives out.~33%
“There was a faint glow under the door.”
3verblookOf a person: to look warm and well, or to show quiet happiness.~23%
“She glowed with pride at the ceremony.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 164 sentences found in the wild and placed 101 of them on a sense (63 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Middle English glowen is recorded with the whole of the modern word already inside it: to give off heat and light without flame, to be heated until red hot, to be brightly coloured, to shine brightly, and — of a face — to turn red. The hot coal and the warm cheek have been the same word from the start.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰleh₁-
Middle English
glouen
English, today
glow
Built from
The is derived from Middle English glouen, glowen (“to give off heat and light without flame; of a thing: to be heated until red hot; to be brightly coloured; to shine brightly; (figurative) to be filled with emotion; of the face, etc.: to turn red, flush; etc.”), and then either:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA