gliff

English

Alternative forms

• glift

Etymology

Compare Middle English glyffen (“to give a glancing look; to become startled or frightened”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlɪf/
• Rhymes: -ɪf
• Homophone: glyph

Noun

gliff (plural gliffs)

1. (UK, Scotland, dialect) A transient glance.
2. (UK, Scotland, dialect) An unexpected view of something that startles one.
3. (UK, Scotland, dialect) A sudden fright.
4. (UK, Scotland, dialect) A short moment.
   • 1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter IX, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume I (The Black Dwarf), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 207:

     [W]ill ye come out and speak just a gliff to ane that has mony thanks to gi'e ye?— […] Wad ye but come out a gliff, man, or but say ye're listening?— […]

Related terms

• giffle (East Anglia)

Verb

gliff (third-person singular simple present gliffs, present participle gliffing, simple past and past participle gliffed)

1. (UK, Scotland, dialect, transitive) To glimpse.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “gliff”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Welsh

Noun

gliff

1. Soft mutation of cliff.

Mutation

Mutated forms of cliff

radical	soft	nasal	aspirate
cliff	gliff	nghliff	chliff

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Welsh.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.