Gling

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. A Scots dialect verb meaning to move swiftly or glide along a surface with smooth, quick motion
2. Describing a dialect word from Scotland that denotes gliding or moving quickly with a smooth, easy stride
3. Used in Scottish dialect to mean sliding or rushing along briskly, usually over a smooth or icy surface

Etymology: "Gling" survives mainly in Scots and northern English dialect, where it means to move or dart swiftly, often with a sense of sliding or gliding along. It is rarely heard outside those regions and is mostly absent from standard English dictionaries, so most readers will meet it in older Scottish writing or regional speech. Its ancestry is uncertain. The sound pattern gl- appears in a family of English words about light and motion, such as "glide", "glint" and "glimmer", and "gling" is most likely part of that group. Whether it descends from an Old English or Old Norse verb, and exactly how its sense narrowed to swift movement, is not clearly documented.