Definition of "gloss"

gloss¹

/ɡlɒs/

noun
usually uncountable, plural glosses
1. A surface shine or luster.
2. (figuratively) A superficially or deceptively attractive appearance.
  Quotations
  To me more dear, congenial to my heart, / One native charm than all the gloss of art.
  1770, [Oliver] Goldsmith, The Deserted Village, a Poem, London: […] W. Griffin, […]
  Hodgson may now have to bring in James Milner on the left and, on that basis, a certain amount of gloss was taken off a night on which Welbeck scored twice but barely celebrated either before leaving the pitch angrily complaining to the Slovakian referee.
  2013 September 7, Daniel Taylor, “Danny Welbeck leads England's rout of Moldova but hit by Ukraine ban”, in The Guardian‎
verb
third-person singular simple present glosses, present participle glossing, simple past and past participle glossed
1. (transitive) To give a gloss or sheen to.
2. (transitive) To make (something) attractive by deception
  Quotations
  You have the art to gloss the foulest cause.
  1722, Ambrose Philips, The Briton
3. (intransitive) To become shiny.
4. (transitive, idiomatic) Used in a phrasal verb: gloss over (“to cover up a mistake or crime, to treat something with less care than it deserves”).

gloss²

/ɡlɒs/

noun
plural glosses
1. (countable) A brief explanatory note or translation of a foreign, archaic, technical, difficult, complex, or uncommon expression, inserted after the original, in the margin of a document, or between lines of a text.
  Quotations
  All this, without a gloss or comment, / He would unriddle in a moment.
  1684, Samuel Butler, Hudibras
  He was a prolific annotator - writing around fifty thousand glosses in as many as twenty manuscripts.
  2021, Mary Wellesley, The Gilded Page: The Secret Lives of Medieval Manuscripts, page 9
2. (countable) A glossary; a collection of such notes.
3. (countable, obsolete) An expression requiring such explanatory treatment.
4. (countable) An extensive commentary on some text.
5. (countable, law, US) An interpretation by a court of a specific point within a statute or case law.
  Quotations
  This volume is thus not a narrowly defined treatment of the Code of Professional Responsibility but rather represents a "common law" gloss on it.
  1979, American Bar Foundation., Annotated code of professional responsibility, page ix
  Judicial Gloss on Test [section title]
  2007, Bruce R. Hopkins., The law of tax-exempt organizations., page 76

gloss³

/ɡlɒs/

verb
third-person singular simple present glosses, present participle glossing, simple past and past participle glossed
1. (transitive) To add a gloss to (a text).