Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Jubilant delight; joy.
  • noun Music A part song scored for three or more usually male and unaccompanied voices that was popular in the 1700s.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Exultant or playful exhilaration; demonstrative joy or delight; merriment; mirth; gaiety.
  • noun Music; minstrelsy. See gleeman.
  • noun A musical instrument.
  • noun In music, a composition for three or more solo voices, without accompaniment, usually in two or three contrasted movements, and adapted to any kind of metrical text, not necessarily joyful.
  • See gley.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
  • noun Joy; merriment; mirth; gayety; paricularly, the mirth enjoyed at a feast.
  • noun (Mus.) An unaccompanied part song for three or more solo voices. It is not necessarily gleesome.

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

  • noun uncountable Joy; merriment; mirth; gaiety; particularly, the mirth enjoyed at a feast.
  • noun uncountable Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
  • noun music, countable An unaccompanied part song for three or more solo voices, not necessarily merry.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun great merriment
  • noun malicious satisfaction

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English gle, entertainment, from Old English glēo; see ghel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English gle, from Old English glēo, glīġ, glēow, glīw ("glee, pleasure, mirth, play, sport; music; mockery"), from Proto-Germanic *glīwan (“joy, mirth”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰlew- (“to joke, make fun, enjoy”). Cognate with Scots gle, glie, glew ("game, play, sport, mirth, joy, rejoicing, entertainment, melody, music"), Old Norse glȳ ("joy, glee, gladness"), Ancient Greek χλεύη (chleúē, "joke, jest, scorn"). A poetic word in Middle English, the word was obsolete by 1500, but revived late 18c.

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Examples

Comments

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  • Simply saying "glee" makes me feel gleeful.

    December 5, 2007

  • It is a feelgood word.

    December 6, 2007

  • From The Ladykillers:

    "This is perfect. This is more than perfect. I can scarcely contain my glee."

    December 7, 2007