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We send this word, glower, out to the glaring grumps, the scowling scoundrels, and the pouting pessimists of the world. Its gloomy roots grow in Scotland, where glower (or glowren, to use the older Scottish form of the word) has been used since the late Middle Ages. Originally, the word meant simply "to look intently" or "to stare in amazement," but by the late 1700s, glowering stares were being associated with anger instead of astonishment. We can offer no explanation for this semantic development, but we will submit that in its evolved form it reminds us of an older and unrelated English word: lower (it rhymes with flower) means "to frown or look sullen."
Examples of glower in a Sentence
Proma Khosla, IndieWire, 30 Mar. 2025
Willie linked arms with his fellow-players and faced down the opposing captain, glowering at the antipodeans in headbands and teeny-tiny shorts.
—Rebecca Mead, The New Yorker, 17 Mar. 2025
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 21 Feb. 2025
Coming off a half-dozen roles in a two-year span, Modine was having a pancake breakfast with David Alan Grier, one of his co-stars from Robert Altman’s Streamers (1983), when a fellow patron at West Hollywood’s The Source Restaurant greeted him from afar with an f-bomb and a glower.
—Brian Davids, The Hollywood Reporter, 18 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for glower
Cite this Entry
“Glower.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/glower. Accessed 3 May. 2025.
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