glamour

Borrowed from Scots glamour (“magic”), alteration of Middle English gramere (“grammar”), from Old French gramaire. Doublet of glamoury, gramarye, grammar, and grimoire. A connection has also been suggested with Old Norse glámr (“the moon", also "the name of a ghost”, poetic byname, literally “the pale one”) and glámsýni (“glamour, illusion”, literally “glam-sight”). From Grettir's Saga aka Grettis Saga, one of the Sagas of Icelanders, after the hero has been cursed by Glam, aka Glamr: "...he was become so fearsome a man in the dark, that he durst go nowhither alone after nightfall, for then he seemed to see all kinds of horrors. And that has fallen since into a proverb, that "Glam lends eyes", or gives Glamsight to those who see things nowise as they are."

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɡlæmə/

• Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɡlæmɚ/
• Rhymes: -æmə(ɹ)

glamour (countable and uncountable, plural glamours)

1. (uncountable) Originally, enchantment; magic charm; especially, the effect of a spell that causes one to see objects in a form that differs from reality, typically to make filthy, ugly, or repulsive things seem beauteous.
   • 1882, James Thomson (B. V.), The City of Dreadful Night:

     They often murmur to themselves, they speak
     To one another seldom, for their woe
     Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreak
     Itself abroad; and if at whiles it grow
     To frenzy which must rave, none heeds the clamour,
     Unless there waits some victim of like glamour,
     To rave in turn, who lends attentive show.

2. (uncountable) Alluring beauty or charm (often with sex appeal).

   glamour magazines; a glamour model

3. (uncountable) Any excitement, appeal, or attractiveness associated with a person, place, or thing; that which makes something appealing.

   The idea of being a movie star has lost its glamour for me.

   • 1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 197:

     “The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven’t been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour’s off.”

   • 1950 May 7, The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, page 13, column 3:

     Boys have not lost their love for adventure, and still have `itchy feet.' Many are seeking glamor jobs, want to be writers, detectives, seamen.

4. Any artificial interest in, or association with, objects, or persons, through which they appear delusively magnified or glorified.
5. A kind of haze in the air, causing things to appear different from what they really are.^[1]
   • 1861 October, “The Nelumbium Luteum, or Yellow Egyptian Lotus.”, in Thomas Meehan, editor, The Gardner’s Monthly and Advertiser Horticultural, volume III, number 10, 23 North Sixth Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, page 311:

     When the golden October comes, with its witching of hazy air that makes a glamour for all things and any landscape, we shall see these offspring of poetic myth stretch out beside the creeks, breaking the tender hulls for their magical chincapins, and feeding on them and on the dreams of which they are the talismans.

6. (countable) An item, motif, person, image that by association improves appearance.
7. (slang, countable) A beautiful woman.
   • 1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 214:

     One of the Qantas staff, a glamour, made her way over to us.

• glamor (US); however, the -our spelling is the more common spelling, even in the US

glamour (third-person singular simple present glamours, present participle glamouring, simple past and past participle glamoured)

1. (transitive) To enchant; to bewitch.

• Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon (1874) “Glámr”, in An Icelandic-English Dictionary, 1st edition, Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press

From English glamour.

• IPA^(key): /ɡlamuːr/, [ɡ̊laˈmuːɐ̯] or IPA^(key): /ɡlamɔr/, [ˈɡ̊lamɒ]

glamour c (singular definite glamouren, not used in plural form)

1. glamour

• glamourisere
• glamourøs

From French glamour.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡlɑmour/, [ˈɡlɑ̝mo̞ur]
• Rhymes: -ɑmour
• Syllabification^(key): gla‧mo‧ur
• Hyphenation^(key): gla‧mo‧ur

glamour

1. glamour (alluring beauty or charm)

• “glamour”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[1] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 2 July 2023

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

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glamour m (uncountable)

1. glamour

glamour (invariable)

1. glamorous

From English glamour.

glamour m (definite singular glamouren)

1. glamour

• glamorøs

• “glamour” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From English glamour.

glamour m (definite singular glamouren)

1. glamour

• glamorøs

• “glamour” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Unadapted borrowing from English glamour, with the pronunciation influenced by French. Doublet of gramática and grimório.

glamour m (uncountable)

1. glamour

   Synonyms: charme, encanto

• glamouroso / glamoroso
• glamorizar

Unadapted borrowing from English glamour.

• IPA^(key): /ɡlaˈmuɾ/ [ɡlaˈmuɾ]
• Rhymes: -uɾ
• Syllabification: gla‧mour

glamour m (uncountable)

1. alternative spelling of glamur

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

• “glamour”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

glamour c (definite singular glamouren) (uncountable)

1. glamour