glide

/glaɪd/

/glaɪd/

Other forms: glided; gliding; glides

To glide is to sail or skate with ease across a surface. Your favorite thing about winter might be watching the skaters in the park glide silently on the ice-covered lake.

A sled glides down a snowy hill, and a kayak glides across a silvery pond. Another way to glide is to soar in the air: your paper airplane, if you make it the right way, will glide all the way across the room, and a hawk can glide through the sky without seeming to move its wings. A different kind of glide is linguistic, a sound that's pronounced like a vowel but functions as a consonant.

Definitions of glide
  1. verb
    move smoothly and effortlessly
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    types:
    show 21 types...
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    skid, slew, slide, slip, slue
    move obliquely or sideways, usually in an uncontrolled manner
    coast
    move effortlessly; by force of gravity
    skitter
    glide easily along a surface
    snake
    move smoothly and sinuously, like a snake
    skate
    move along on skates
    plane, skim
    travel on the surface of water
    surf, surfboard
    ride the waves of the sea with a surfboard
    body-surf
    ride the crest of a wave without a surfboard
    snowboard
    glide down a snow-covered slope while standing on a board
    submarine
    move forward or under in a sliding motion
    skid
    slide without control
    side-slip
    slide sideways through the air in a downward direction in an airplane along an inclined lateral axis
    freewheel
    coast in a vehicle using the freewheel
    ice skate
    move along on ice skates
    figure skate
    dance on skates
    roller skate
    travel on shoes with steel or rubber rollers attached to their soles
    skateboard
    ride on a flat board with rollers attached to the bottom
    Rollerblade
    travel on shoes with a single line of rubber wheels attached to their soles
    aquaplane
    ride on an aquaplane
    windsurf
    ride standing on a surfboard with an attached sail, on water
    aquaplane
    rise up onto a thin film of water between the tires and road so that there is no more contact with the road
    type of:
    go, locomote, move, travel
    change location; move, travel, or proceed, also metaphorically
  2. verb
    cause to move or pass silently, smoothly, or imperceptibly
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    type of:
    displace, move
    cause to move or shift into a new position or place, both in a concrete and in an abstract sense
  3. verb
    fly in or as if in a glider plane
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    types:
    kite
    soar or fly like a kite
    sailplane, soar
    fly a plane without an engine
    type of:
    aviate, fly, pilot
    operate an airplane
  4. noun
    the act of moving smoothly along a surface while remaining in contact with it
    synonyms: coast, slide
    see moresee less
    types:
    sideslip, skid, slip
    an unexpected slide
    snowboarding
    the act of sliding down a snow-covered slope while standing on a snowboard
    type of:
    motion, move, movement
    the act of changing location from one place to another
  5. noun
    the activity of flying a glider
    synonyms: gliding, sailing, sailplaning, soaring
    see moresee less
    types:
    hang gliding
    gliding in a hang glider
    paragliding, parasailing
    gliding in a parasail
    type of:
    flight, flying
    an instance of traveling by air
  6. noun
    a vowellike sound that serves as a consonant
    synonyms: semivowel
    see moresee less
    types:
    palatal
    a semivowel produced with the tongue near the palate (like the initial sound in the English word `yeast')
    type of:
    phone, sound, speech sound
    (phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language
Pronunciation
US

/glaɪd/
UK

/glaɪd/
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DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘glide'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors. Send us feedback
Word Family

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