English

Adjective

glib ‎(comparative glibber, superlative glibbest)

1. Having a ready flow of words but lacking thought or understanding; superficial; shallow.
2. Smooth or slippery.

   a sheet of glib ice

3. Artfully persuasive in nature.

   a glib tongue; a glib speech

   • Shakespeare

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

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 glib.
   • 1628, Joseph Hall, “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, Paradise Regained, Book 1, lines 371-6,

     And, when to all his Angels he proposed

     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 glibbed with lies

     To his destruction, as I had in charge:

   • 1730, Edward Strother, Dr. Radcliffe’s Practical Dispensatory, London: C. Rivington, p. 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, The House of All Sorts, “Gran’s Battle,”

     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 worn in Ireland.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, IV.8:

     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 […].

   • Spenser

     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.

   • Southey

     Their wild costume of the glib and mantle.

Etymology 3

Compare Old English and dialect lib to castrate, geld, Danish dialect 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.
   • 1623: William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, Act II Scene 1

     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

From Proto-Slavic *glibъ.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡlîːb/

Noun

glȋb m ‎(Cyrillic spelling гли̑б)

1. mud, mire

Declension