glib

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlɪb/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -ɪb

Etymology 1

A shortening of either English glibbery (“slippery”) or its source, Low German glibberig, glibberich (“slippery”) / Dutch glibberig (“slippery”).

Adjective

glib (comparative glibber, superlative glibbest)

1. Having a ready flow of words but lacking thought or understanding; superficial; shallow.
   • 2004 August 26, Leslie Feinberg, “Survival with Setbacks”, in Workers World‎:

     A much more thorough examination of this period is essential, and no glib answers should be accepted as good coin.

2. (dated) Smooth or slippery.

   a sheet of glib ice

3. Artfully persuasive but insincere in nature; smooth-talking, honey-tongued, silver-tongued.

   a glib tongue; a glib speech

   • c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     I want that glib and oily art, / To speak and purpose not.

4. (US) Snarky or unserious in a disrespectful way.
   • 2013 October 11, Alexandra Alter, “Literary Giant Obsessed by Movies”, in Wall Street Journal‎:

     When Mr. Franco called Mr. McCarthy and asked why he had written a book about such a repellent character, he was glib. "He said, verbatim, 'I don't know, James, probably some dumb-ass reason,'" Mr. Franco recalled.

Derived terms

• glibly
• glibness

Translations

Verb

glib (third-person singular simple present glibs, present participle glibbing, simple past and past participle glibbed)

1. (transitive) To make smooth or slippery.
   • 1628, Joseph Hal, “Christian Liberty Laid Forth,” in The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Hall, D.D., Volume V, London: Williams & Smith, 1808, p. 366,

     There is a drunken liberty of the Tongue; which, being once glibbed with intoxicating liquor, runs wild through heaven and earth; and spares neither him that is God above, nor those which are called gods on earth.

   • 1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: J. M for John Starkey , →OCLC, page 21, lines 371–376:

     And, when to all his Angels he propos'd / To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud, / That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring, / I undertook that office, and the tongues / Of all his flattering Prophets glibb'd with lyes / To his destruction, as I had in charge.

   • 1730, Edward Strother, Dr. Radcliffe’s Practical Dispensatory‎, London: C. Rivington, page 342:

     They are good internally in Fits of the Stone in the Kidneys, by glibbing the Ureters, and making even a large Stone pass with ease […]

   • 1944, Emily Carr, “Gran’s Battle”, in The House of All Sorts‎:

     We were having one of our bitterest cold snaps. Wind due north, shrieking over stiff land; two feet of snow, all substances glibbed with ice and granite-hard.

Etymology 2

From Irish glib.

Noun

glib (plural glibs)

1. (historical) A mass of matted hair worn down over the eyes, formerly used in Ireland.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. , London: [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Whom when she saw in wretched weedes disguiz'd, / With heary glib deform'd and meiger face, / Like ghost late risen from his grave agryz'd, / She knew him not […]

   • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande , Dublin: Societie of Stationers, , →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland  (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: Society of Stationers, Hibernia Press, y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:

     The Irish have, from the Scythians, mantles and long glibs, which is a thick curled bush of hair hanging down over their eyes, and monstrously disguising them.

   • 1829, Robert Southey, Sir Thomas More, or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society:

     Their wild costume of the glib and mantle.

   • 1855, Charles Kingsley, “Clovelly Court in the Olden Time”, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, , volume I, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, page 163:

     But in the dead of njight, who should come in but James Desmond, sword in hand, with a dozen of his ruffians at his heels, each with his glib over his ugly face, and his skene in his hand.

Etymology 3

Compare Old English and dialectal English lib (“to castrate, geld”), dialectal Danish live, Low German and Old Dutch lubben.

Verb

glib (third-person singular simple present glibs, present participle glibbing, simple past and past participle glibbed)

1. (obsolete) To castrate; to geld; to emasculate.
   • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies  (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, :

     Fourteen they shall not see
     To bring false generations. They are co-heirs;
     And I had rather glib myself than they
     Should not produce fair issue.

Serbo-Croatian

Etymology

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *gliba.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlîːb/

Noun

glȋb m (Cyrillic spelling гли̑б)

1. mud, mire

Declension

Further reading

• “glib” in Hrvatski jezični portal