Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Sickeningly sweet stories with a moral, often hiding slightly sinister undertones.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Imitative of the retching that might be induced by stories of this kind. (Coined by Patricia Chapin, a member of the urban legends discussion mailing list of the Snopes website.)

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Examples

  • In ordinary language, glurge is the sending of inspirational (often supposedly "true") tales that conceal much darker meanings than the uplifting moral lessons they purport to offer, and that undermine their messages by fabricating and distorting historical fact in the guise of offering a "true story."

    The Urge to Glurge and Other Online Misdeamenours Sharon Bakar 2005

  • In ordinary language, glurge is the sending of inspirational (often supposedly "true") tales that conceal much darker meanings than the uplifting moral lessons they purport to offer, and that undermine their messages by fabricating and distorting historical fact in the guise of offering a "true story."

    Archive 2005-07-01 Sharon Bakar 2005

  • The first is a kind of message commonly known as "glurge," too-sweet-to-be-true stories that give people a warm feeling or even chills.

    Valerie Tarico: Christian Belief Through the Lens of Cognitive Science: Part 5 of 6 2009

  • (And doesn't the word "glurge" sound so pleasantly like vomiting?)

    The Urge to Glurge and Other Online Misdeamenours Sharon Bakar 2005

  • (And doesn't the word "glurge" sound so pleasantly like vomiting?)

    Archive 2005-07-01 Sharon Bakar 2005

  • She's an opportunist, and her writing is the most nauseating kind of glurge, but it sells.

    Top Stories - Google News 2008

  • Her best stories have a decent combination of humour and nostalgic mourning; her worst are sentimental glurge.

    April Books 12) Impossible Things, by Connie Willis nwhyte 2010

  • We've all adjusted to meaningless event log entries, stupid glurge icons and pointless clicking through Microsoft menus, but my coffee pot!

    More Death Less Caffeine kludge 2010

  • For me it helps to make the onsluaught of photo glurge, dining updates, flair exchange, superpokes, game awards and TV spoilers more palatable.

    Archive 2010-02-01 kludge 2010

  • We've all adjusted to meaningless event log entries, stupid glurge icons and pointless clicking through Microsoft menus, but my coffee pot!

    Archive 2010-02-01 kludge 2010

Comments

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  • Noun: Mawkishly sentimental story with facts fabricated to tug on the heart strings.

    July 24, 2007

  • Like the ones on the Hallmark Channel?

    July 24, 2007

  • Sickeningly sweet stories with a moral, often hiding slightly sinister undertones. Etymology: "Imitative of the retching that might be induced by stories of this kind." (Wiktionary)

    June 14, 2008

  • Glurge is the sentimental stuff, frequently made up that circulates by e-mail with messages that if you love God you will pass it on.

    A sentence: I got a story about a woman getting a message that saved her life, and it turned out that the messenger was an angel. It was pure glurge.

    April 2, 2009

  • 1. Sentimental, mawkish or uplifting story that uses fabricated facts. Possibly a portmanteau of "gulp"+"purge" - the reaction to glurge.

    June 29, 2009

  • What is glurge? Think of it as chicken soup with several cups of sugar mixed in: It's supposed to be a method of delivering a remedy for what ails you by adding sweetening to make the cure more appealing, but the result is more often a sickly-sweet concoction that induces hyperglycemic fits.

    In ordinary language, glurge is the sending of inspirational (and supposedly "true") tales, ones that often conceal much darker meanings than the uplifting moral lessons they purport to offer or undermine their messages by fabricating and distorting historical fact in the guise of offering a "true story."

    Many of us, it seems, cannot overcome the urge to glurge.

    --Snopes.com

    February 25, 2010