glade

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 2, 2024 is: glade GLAYD noun What It Means A glade is a grassy open space in a forest. // She felt the most at ease outdoors, often taking delight in the peaceful glades she came across on her hikes. cynosure in Context “[Elsie] Reford was no professional gardener, just a very stubborn Ontarian with a lot of money, and although she started in 1926, before the road arrived, she somehow transformed a spruce forest into a glade of delights—in a part of the world where it often snows as late as May.” — Nina Caplan, Travel + Leisure, 28 Oct. 2023 Did You Know? In his poem “After the Winter,” Jamaican-born poet and novelist Claude McKay writes of a “summer isle / Where bamboos spire to shafted grove / And wide-mouthed orchids smile,” declaring that “… we will build a cottage there / Beside an open glade …” It’s a serene, joyous vision offered to the speaker’s beloved, and it may shine a bit of light on the etymological connection between glade and the adjective glad, besides. Glade, which has been part of the English language since the early 1500s, was originally used not just to indicate a clearing in the woods but often specifically to refer to one filled with sunlight (note that McKay specifies that his glade is “open,” as glades can be in full or partial shade). It’s this sunniness that has led some etymologists over the years to suggest a connection with glad, which in Middle English also meant “shining.” To further the intrigue, a now-obsolete sense of glade once referred to a clear or bright space in the sky, or to a flash of light or lightning.