Concept
Gloss (annotation)
Overview
A gloss is a brief notation, especially a marginal or interlinear one, of the meaning of a word or wording in a text. It may be in the language of the text or in the reader's language if that is different.
A collection of glosses is a glossary. A collection of medieval legal glosses, made by glossators, is called an apparatus. The compilation of glosses into glossaries was the beginning of lexicography, and the glossaries so compiled were in fact the first dictionaries. In modern times a glossary, as opposed to a dictionary, is typically found in a text as an appendix of specialized terms that the typical reader may find unfamiliar. Also, satirical explanations of words and events are called glosses. The German Romantic movement used the expression of gloss for poems commenting on a given other piece of poetry, often in the Spanish Décima style.
Glosses were originally notes made in the margin or between the lines of a text in a classical language; the meaning of a word or passage is explained by the gloss. As such, glosses vary in thoroughness and complexity, from simple marginal notations of words one reader found difficult or obscure, to interlinear translations of a text with cross-references to similar passages. Today parenthetical explanations in scientific writing and technical writing are also often called glosses. Hyperlinks to a glossary sometimes supersede them. In East Asian languages, ruby characters are glosses that indicate the pronunciation of logographic Chinese characters.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
There are numerous glosses and explanations of particular passages, which seem to be interpolated by Chaucer himself. Thus he explains what is meant by the _heritage of Socrates_ (p. 10, 11); he gives the meaning of _coemption_ (p. 15); of _Euripus_ (p. 33); of the _porch_ (p. 166).[I-11] Some of his definitions are very quaint; as,…
Boethius, Chaucer's Translation of Boethius's "De Consolatione Philosophiae"
States what Gloss is; opens on Gloss.
[FN [u] LIBER HOMO anciently signified a gentleman; for scarce any one beside was entirely free. Spellm. Gloss. in verbo. [w] Du Canges Gloss in verb. COMMUNE, COMMUNITAS. [x] Guibertus, de vita sua, lib. 2. cap. 7. [y] Stat. of Merton, 1235. cap. 6. [z] Hollingshed, vol. iii. p. 15. [a] Madox's Baron. Angl. p. 19.]
David Hume, The History of England, Volume I
States what Gloss is; names Gloss twice.
Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good, A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly; A flower that dies when first it ’gins to bud; A brittle glass that’s broken presently: A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour. And as goods lost are seld or never found, As vaded gloss no rubbing will refresh, As flowers dead lie wither’d on the ground, As broken glass no cement can redress…
William Shakespeare, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Names Gloss several times; opens on Gloss.
Philosophers who discussed Gloss (annotation)
Related ideas
- Greek language
- American Sign Language
- Iberian Peninsula
- German Romanticism
- Latin
- Translation
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Linguistics
- Philology
- Roman law
- Syntax
- Theology
- Bible
- Vulgar Latin
- Algonquian languages
- Common law
- Robert Scott (philologist)
- Scientific writing
Place in the tradition
Part of Consciousness.