glow
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To emit heat and light without a flame.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
glohIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡloʊ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitive
To emit heat and light without a flame.
intransitive
Of a fire: to emit heat and light.
intransitive
To emit light brightly and steadily as if heated to a high temperature; to shine.
intransitive
To be very hot; also, to be on fire; to burn.
intransitivefigurative
Of a colour: to be bright; also, of a thing: to have a bright colour.
intransitivefigurative
Of a person: to display intense emotion.
noun
A state of heat and light being emitted by a hot object.
A state of heat being emitted by a person or an animal's body.
A state of light being emitted by something (for example, a bioluminescent animal or fungus, or a mineral) which is not hot; luminescence.
figurative
A state of brightness or warmth of colour; specifically, a reddish colour on a person's face indicating health or youth; a flush.
figurative
A condition of being passionate or having warm feelings; an ardour.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To emit heat and light without a flame.
Used this way, glow is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use glow
- “The fireflies were glowing and flying about in the garden.”verb
- “Her face glowed when she came out of the sauna.”verb
- “The coals were glowing in the dark.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The amount of electromagnetic radiation leaving or arriving at a point on a surface.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A gas-discharge tube consisting of a cold cathode and a diode in a tube filled with gas.
A gas-discharge tube with a hot cathode.
An electrical discharge accompanied by ionization of surrounding atmosphere.
Very tall branching herb with showy much-doubled yellow flower heads.
Illumination of the night sky in urban areas.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- methanolnoun
- ultravioletnoun
- fluorescentnoun
- darkadjective
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.