glance

«glance» in Mova's school dictionary: to look at something very quickly and then look away — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (glance, glances, glanced, glancing); noun (a glance, glances)

meaning for a pupil

1) To glance is to look at something very quickly and then look away. tree →

2) A glance is a quick look. tree →

3) To glance off something is to hit it at an angle and bounce away to the side. tree →

sense in the lessons

In stories a glance shows a character noticing something fast, often secretly or nervously; «exchange glances» means two people look at each other to share a feeling without words. «At a glance» means you can see or understand it straight away, as with a chart in maths. In safety, drivers and cyclists glance in mirrors and over their shoulders. Phrases: glance at, glance up, glance around, a quick glance, at first glance.

examples

• She glanced at the clock and saw she was late for school. tree →
• Tom took a quick glance at his notes before the spelling test. tree →
• At a glance, the bar chart shows that more children walk to school than ride. tree →
• The twins exchanged a glance and tried not to laugh. tree →
• Glance over your shoulder before you change lanes on your bike. tree →
• The ball glanced off the goalpost and went wide. tree →
• At first glance the puzzle looked easy, but it was tricky. tree →
• He glanced up from his book when the door opened. tree →
• He glanced up and what did he see? tree →

note

Regular verb: glanced, glancing. «Glance at» something, not «glance on». Do not confuse with «glimpse»: you glance (you choose to look quickly), but you catch a glimpse (you see something briefly, often by chance). «At first glance» warns that the first idea may be wrong.

In the corpora

• Employers often glance at a CV for less than a minute, so grown-ups fuss over every word.
• Slow sounding-out is a normal early stage; re-reading the same easy book builds speed until words are known at a glance.
• Leo glanced at the test answers on her desk, then owned up to the teacher and took the test again.
• Looking at test answers before a test is cheating, even if you only glanced.
• Keeley smiles, and keeps glancing at the phone, wishing her mum would call.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «glance» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.