1 [U,sing.] a shine on a smooth surface:
paper with a high gloss on one side * The gel gives your hair a gloss. * You can have the photos with either a gloss or a matt finish. * Use over your favourite lipstick to add extra gloss.
2 [U] (often in compounds) a substance designed to make sth shiny:
lip gloss
3 (also gloss paint) [U] paint which, when dry, has a hard shiny surface:
two coats of gloss
4 [U,sing.] an attractive appearance that is only on the surface and hides what is not so attractive:
Beneath the gloss of success was a tragic private life. * This scandal has taken the gloss off the occasion.
5 [C] ~ (on sth) a way of explaining sth to make it seem more attractive or acceptable:
The director puts a Hollywood gloss on the civil war.
6 [C] ~ (on sth) a note or comment added to a piece of writing to explain a difficult word or phrase
verb [VN] ~ sth (as sth) to add a note or comment to a piece of writing to explain a difficult word, phrase or idea
PHRASALVERBS
gloss over sth to avoid talking about sth unpleasant or embarrassing by not dealing with it in detail:
to gloss over a problem / difficulty / situation * He glossed over any splits in the party.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for gloss is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is gloss a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, gloss is tagged as noun.
Does gloss appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — gloss appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
