Definition of "glib"

A much more thorough examination of this period is essential, and no glib answers should be accepted as good coin.

2004 August 26, Leslie Feinberg, “Survival with Setbacks”, in Workers World‎

I want that glib and oily art, / To speak and purpose not.

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

When Mr. Franco called Mr. McCarthy and asked why he had written a book about such a repellent character, he was glib. "He said, verbatim, 'I don't know, James, probably some dumb-ass reason,'" Mr. Franco recalled.

2013 October 11, Alexandra Alter, “Literary Giant Obsessed by Movies”, in Wall Street Journal‎

There is a drunken liberty of the Tongue; which, being once glibbed with intoxicating liquor, runs wild through heaven and earth; and spares neither him that is God above, nor those which are called gods on earth.

1628, Joseph Hal, “Christian Liberty Laid Forth,” in The Works of the Right Reverend Father in God, Joseph Hall, D.D., Volume V, London: Williams & Smith, 1808, p. 366

And, when to all his Angels he propos'd / To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud, / That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring, / I undertook that office, and the tongues / Of all his flattering Prophets glibb'd with lyes / To his destruction, as I had in charge.

1671, John Milton, “The First Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J. M[acock] for John Starkey […], page 21, lines 371–376

They are good internally in Fits of the Stone in the Kidneys, by glibbing the Ureters, and making even a large Stone pass with ease […]

1730, Edward Strother, Dr. Radcliffe’s Practical Dispensatory‎, London: C. Rivington, page 342

We were having one of our bitterest cold snaps. Wind due north, shrieking over stiff land; two feet of snow, all substances glibbed with ice and granite-hard.

1944, Emily Carr, “Gran’s Battle”, in The House of All Sorts‎

Whom when she saw in wretched weedes disguiz'd, / With heary glib deform'd and meiger face, / Like ghost late risen from his grave agryz'd, / She knew him not […]

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie

The Irish have, from the Scythians, mantles and long glibs, which is a thick curled bush of hair hanging down over their eyes, and monstrously disguising them.

1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […]; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809,

Their wild costume of the glib and mantle.

1829, Robert Southey, Sir Thomas More, or, Colloquies on the Progress and Prospects of Society

But in the dead of njight, who should come in but James Desmond, sword in hand, with a dozen of his ruffians at his heels, each with his glib over his ugly face, and his skene in his hand.

1855, Charles Kingsley, “Clovelly Court in the Olden Time”, in Westward Ho!: Or, The Voyages and Adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, […], volume I, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Macmillan & Co., page 163

Fourteen they shall not seeTo bring false generations. They are co-heirs;And I had rather glib myself than theyShould not produce fair issue.

c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene i]