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glade

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Etymology and origin of the English word glade

Pronunciation

glade1 setting of the sun

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1200 Winteney version of the Rule of St Benet
Borrowed from
Old Norse

Etymology

The word for the setting of the sun, found only in the phrase “go to glade”, is perhaps a borrowing from early Scandinavian.[2][3] The Middle English Dictionary calls it probably of Old Norse origin, comparing sólarglaðan (“sunset”);[4] the OED adds that this Old Norse word is found only in the “Hervarar Saga”, and compares the Swedish dialect verb gladas (“to set (of the sun)”).[2][3] Wright compared a Norwegian dialect verb meaning to go down, of the sun.[5] The OED thinks a connection with glad possible.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of the sun, to set, in the phrase to go to glade: about 1200, in the Winteney version of the Rule of St Benet, where it renders a Latin phrase for sunset;[2][4] the Middle English Dictionary dates the manuscript before 1225.[4]

Semantic evolution

Trevisa's translation of Higden (1387) has the sun going to glade on Easter eve,[4][5] and the Middle English Dictionary also records drauen to glade in the same sense.[4] The OED's last quotation is from 1788,[2] and the Shorter Oxford likewise dates the phrase from Middle English to the late 18th century.[3] Wright's dialect dictionary records it as obsolete in the dialect of County Wexford, in Ireland, where the sun was said to “go to glaade”.[5]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – to go to glade, of the sun, to set.[2][4]
  • 1387 – the same phrase in Trevisa's translation of Higden.[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (obsolete, c. 1200–1788) to go to glade: of the sun, to set or go down.[2][3][4]

glade2 clearing in a wood

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1400 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as glodes
Inherited from
Old English *glad via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *gladaz

Etymology

The word for a clearing in a wood is of uncertain origin.[2][3][6][7][8] It is probably inherited from Middle English glade, also glode and glede,[4][1] perhaps inherited from Old English *glād (“bright place”) or *glǣd, unrecorded forms that the Middle English Dictionary reconstructs;[4][1] the OED suggests *glāda, from the root of gleam.[2] It is recorded earlier in place names, such as Gledele (1131–41) in Bedfordshire or Huntingdonshire, and in surnames, such as Richard Glade (1275).[4][9] Most dictionaries connect it with glad in its old sense “bright, shining”,[10][6][11][12][13][14] from Old English glæd, Proto-Germanic *gladaz (“bright, glad”),[15][16] so that a glade would first have been a bright, open space in a wood;[15][12][8] compare French clairière (“glade”), from clair (“clear, bright”), and German Lichtung (“clearing, glade”), from Licht (“light”).[15][12][13] Barnhart takes it as probably borrowed from a Scandinavian source, comparing Old Norse glaðr (“bright”),[9] and Etymonline derives the form glode from that Old Norse adjective.[15] The Gersum Project objects that a Norse loan should have kept a final fricative, and that if glode is the same word, the ancestor had a long ā, glode being the regular Midland and Southern outcome and glade a literary northern form.[17] Skeat compared a Swedish dialect adjective meaning completely open, said of a lake free of ice.[18]

Earliest recorded meaning

A bright or open space: about 1400, in the plural glodes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where a mound is overgrown with grass in patches;[4] Barnhart dates glade, a bright or open space in a wood, to about 1400,[9] and Etymonline to the late 14th century.[15]

Semantic evolution

Barnhart sees in the early uses a light, sunny place, while later writers linked the word with shade.[9] In Middle English it could also mean a bright patch of sky, and perhaps a bright surface of snow.[4] The sense of a clear space or passage through a wood is in Thomas More before 1535,[2] 1529 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged,[14] and a glade cut in a wood for snaring birds is recorded from 1617.[2] The bright space in the sky, or a flash of light, lasted until the 18th century.[2][3] Johnson (1755) noted that the word was used of an avenue through a wood, whether open or shaded, so that poets gave it opposite epithets.[19] In American English a glade was a marshy tract of low, grassy land, the source of everglade,[9][15][3] and locally an opening in the ice of a stretch of water.[3]

Timeline

  • c. 1400 – a bright or open space, also a bright patch of sky.[4][9]
  • 1529 – a clear open space or passage in a wood.[14] The OED's first quotation is from Thomas More, before 1535.[2]
  • 1558 – a bright space between clouds; a flash of light (obsolete by 1744).[2][3]
  • 1617 – an opening in a wood used for snaring birds.[2]
  • 1621 – the verb, to make a glade in a forest.[2]
  • 1644 – in American English, a marshy tract of low grassy land.[9] Etymonline dates this sense to 1789, and the OED's first quotation is from 1796.[15][2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. An open space in a wood or forest; a clearing: They rested in a sunny glade by the stream.[6][14][2]
  2. (archaic) An open passage through woodland.[14][2]
  3. (US) A marshy, low-lying tract of grassy land.[14][3][9]
  4. (obsolete, 1558–1744) A bright space in the sky; a flash or gleam of light.[2][3]

Word family

  • gladelike

References

  1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  5. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  6. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  12. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  13. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  14. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  15. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  16. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  17. ^ Dance, Richard; Pons-Sanz, Sara; Schorn, Brittany, eds., The Gersum Project: The Scandinavian Influence on English Vocabulary, gersum.org
  18. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  19. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.

Related etymologies

  • rotten · also from Old Norse
  • kindle · also from Old Norse
  • awe · also from Old Norse
  • scar · also from Old Norse
  • crawl · also from Old Norse
  • skate · also from Old Norse
  • troll · also from Old Norse
  • thrive · also from Old Norse
Cite this entry

“Glade.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/glade. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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