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Glib   Listen
noun
Glib  n.  A thick lock of hair, hanging over the eyes. (Obs.) "The Irish have, from the Scythians, mantles and long glibs, which is a thick curied bush of hair hanging down over their eyes, and monstrously disguising them." "Their wild costume of the glib and mantle."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Glib" Quotes from Famous Books



... a High German doctor, of the first class. He had taken his diploma of Beelzebub in the Black Forest, and was gifted with as fine a hand to force a card—with as glib a tongue to harangue a mob at wakes and fairs, as any professor since the birth of the fourth grace of life,—swindling. He would talk until his head smoked of his list of miraculous cures—of his balsams, his anodynes, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... fro with ignoble solemnity; another has fallen asleep and snores at intervals with a nauseous rattle; smart young men, dressed fashionably, fling chance witticisms at the busy barmaids, and the nymphs answer with glib readiness. This is the home of Jollity and Good-fellowship; this is the place from which Care is banished; this is the happy corner where the social glass is dispensed. Alas for the jollity and the sociability and all the rest of it! Force yourself to study the vile spectacle, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... ingenious faculty for putting everything on his client's side in the best light, and his adversary's in the worst. He could "tear a witness to pieces," and turn him inside out. His junior, Skimpin, was glib, ready-armed at all points, and singularly adroit in "making a hare" of any witness who fell into his hands, teste Winkle. He had all the professional devices for dealing with a witness's answers, and twisting them to his purpose, at his fingers' ends. He was the Wontner or Ballantyne ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald

... launched in a recital glib on his lips, regained the dominance of manner which the attitude of his subordinates had momentarily imperiled. Increased composure brought with it a certain hauteur, and he paused again—perhaps to gratify the actor's instinct in him rather than observe the effect ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... auctioneer, in his glib tones, "we are presenting to-day a most unusual opportunity. Prizes will be distributed to many enterprising people of Gridley, though these prizes are all so valuable that I trust none of them will go for the traditional 'song.' It is seldom, indeed, in ...
— The High School Boys' Canoe Club • H. Irving Hancock

... reprehensible in graphic as in musical art. There is often no literary meaning whatever in some of the best examples of both. Harmony, tone, color and technique pure and simple are the full compass of the intention. What this may suggest to the individual he is welcome to, but the glib dictum of certain preachers on art as to hidden intentions would indicate that they had effected an agreement, with the full confidence of the silent partner to exploit him. Beware of the gilt edged footnote, or the art that depends upon it. A writer of ordinary imagination ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore

... first Robert Turold reverted to the Norman spelling when he settled in Suffolk. Turrald is the corrupted form, doubtless due to early Saxon difficulties with Norman names. The Saxons were never very glib at Norman-French, and there was no standardized spelling of family names at ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... "Glib tongue," I laughed. "Born to flatter the male—every girl of your world." And I added seriously, "You don't answer my question. What takes you ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings

... on ahead, knew nothing of the love scenes just behind them. They talked of many things, of the moonlight and the river and the scent of the flowers, but all the time Hugh felt diffident and tongue-tied. He had not the glib tongue of Gavan Blake, and he felt little at ease talking common-places. Mary Grant thought he must be worried over something, and, with her usual directness, went ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... common people and officers; there are the altars of the spirits of the land and grain. Why must one read books before he can be considered to have learned?' 4. The Master said, 'It is on this account that I hate your glib-tongued people.' CHAP. XXV. 1. Tsze-lu, Tsang Hsi, Zan Yu, and Kung-hsi Hwa were sitting by the Master. 2. He said to them, 'Though I am a day or so older than you, do not ...
— The Chinese Classics—Volume 1: Confucian Analects • James Legge

... fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. O, these encounterers, so glib of tongue, That give accosting welcome ere it comes, And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every ticklish reader! set them down For sluttish spoils of opportunity ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... line along the black stubble of his thin gunpowder eye-brows, that looked like a scorched after-math from a last week's shaving. His coat collar behind in perfect unison, both of colour and lustre, with the coarse yet glib cordage, which I suppose he called his hair, and which with a bend inward at the nape of the neck,—the only approach to flexure in his whole figure,—slunk in behind his waistcoat; while the countenance lank, dark, very hard, and ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... glib sayings to the effect that the work of great men is not appreciated until after they are dead. This may be so and it may not. It depends upon the man and the age. Meissonier enjoyed full half a century of the highest and most ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... talked in the same large ways about policy, and the duties and responsibilities of the rich. They were swayed by the same ethic that dominated their husbands—the ethic of their class; and they uttered glib phrases that their ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... ugly, idle, mischievous fellow, son of the Duc de Rohan, who had given him the title I have just named. He had served in one campaign very indolently, and then quitted the army, under pretence of ill-health, to serve no more. Glib in speech, and with the manners of the great world, he was full of caprices and fancies; although a great gambler and spendthrift, he was miserly, and cared only for himself. He had been enamoured of Florence, an actress, whom M. d'Orleans had for a long time kept, and by ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... diffrent. He war down in de lower kentry wen de war war ober. He war mighty smart, an' had a good head-piece, an' a orful glib tongue. He set up store an' sole whisky, an' made a lot ob money. Den he wanted ter go to de legislatur. Now what should he do but make out he'd got 'ligion, an' war called to preach. He had no more 'ligion dan my ole dorg. But he had money an' built a meetin' house, whar he could hole meeting, ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper

... round it, and round its maker, that mist of wonder which is dear to both gods and worshippers alike. Ordinary people are 'terribly at ease in Zion.' They propose to walk arm in arm with the poets, and have a glib ignorant way of saying, 'Why should we read what is written about Shakespeare and Milton? We can read the plays and the poems. That is enough.' But an appreciation of Milton is, as the late Rector of Lincoln ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde

... is so moral, or so immoral if it comes to that. I notice it's always the folks that ain't had much to do with morals one way or the other that's so almighty glib about them." ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... shall I vnderstand you? Poet. I will vnboult to you. You see how all Conditions, how all Mindes, As well of glib and slipp'ry Creatures, as Of Graue and austere qualitie, tender downe Their seruices to Lord Timon: his large Fortune, Vpon his good and gracious Nature hanging, Subdues and properties to his loue and tendance ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... greeting in the faces of flowers, Blowest in the firmamental glory, Renewest in the heart of the sad human All faiths, guard thou the innocent spirit Into whose unknowing hands this noontide Thou pourest treasure, yet scarce recognised, That unashamed before man's glib wisdom, Unabashed beneath the wrath of chance, She accept in simplicity of homage The hidden holiness, the created emblem To be in her, until death shall take her, The source and secret ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various

... instant, looking absently at the headstone of "Hephzibah," who was the later of Robert McCoy's two beloved wives, then she said, with an effort, for these staid descendants of Scottish ancestry were not given to glib talking of sacred things: ...
— The Wizard's Daughter and Other Stories • Margaret Collier Graham

... bells chiming full many a clime in, Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine; While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate;— But all their music spoke naught like thine. For memory dwelling on each proud swelling Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free, Made the bells of Shandon sound far more grand on The pleasant waters of the ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... equivalents for terms which were used for a century or two past in every-day Japanese speech. Those who know most about these facts, are most modest in attempting with English words to do justice to Japanese thought; while those who know the least seem to be most glib, fluent and voluminous in showing to their own satisfaction, that there is little difference between the ethics of Chinese Asia and those ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis

... we pointed silently to their feet of clay. Perhaps we, as folk of simpler soul and more primitive type, have been most struck in the welter of recent years by the utter failure of white religion. We have curled our lips in something like contempt as we have witnessed glib apology and weary explanation. Nothing of the sort deceived us. A nation's religion is its life, and as such white ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois

... by heart had a black horse, and he who knew all about the corporation laws received a milk-white steed. Then they rubbed the corners of their mouths with fish-oil, so that they might become very smooth and glib. All the servants stood below in the courtyard, and looked on while they mounted their horses; and just by chance the third son came up. For the proprietor had really three sons, though nobody counted the third with his brothers, because he was not so learned as they, and ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... glib grandmother interposed. "Ye jes' gin we-uns a sniff an' a sup, an' then ye tuk the kittle that leaks an' shook the rest of the coffee beans from out yer milk-piggin inter it, an' sot out an' marched yer-self through the laurel—I wonder nuthin' didn't ketch ye! howsomever naught is never in ...
— The Raid Of The Guerilla - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... questions that were never very distant from our discussions, that came apt to every topic, was the true significance of democracy, Tariff Reform as a method of international hostility, and the imminence of war. On the first issue I can still recall little Bailey, glib and winking, explaining that democracy was really just a dodge for getting assent to the ordinances of the expert official by means of the polling booth. "If they don't like things," said he, "they can vote for the opposition candidate and see what happens then—and ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... he asked, with biting scorn. "Tell the Duke and Lord Cheisford where I found them! Let us hear your glib young tongue telling the truth ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... I have said, tend to complicate the Herzegovinian-Montenegrin question, private machinations have recently been the most successful, and consequently the most injurious to order and the general weal. The energy of some of the foreign employes has been truly astounding, while their glib tongues and manoeuvring minds have worked metamorphoses worthy of Robin or the Wizard of the North. This distortion of facts was somewhat naively described by a French ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... us at every step; we are to follow Christ's example. Be humble, it is said, as Christ was humble. Theology indeed would prescribe annihilation rather than humiliation. Man in presence of the Infinite is absolutely nothing. Science, according to a glib commonplace of popular writers, agrees with theology in prescribing humility. But that very ambiguous word has a totally different meaning in the two cases. Science bids us recognize the inevitable limitation of our powers, and the feebleness of any individual as compared ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph

... suitor, with his glib Irish tongue, and his pretty, coaxing ways. There was about him also that glamour of experience and of mystery which attracts a woman's interest, and finally her love. He could talk of the sweet valleys of County Monaghan from which he came, of the lovely, distant island, the low ...
— The Valley of Fear • Arthur Conan Doyle

... high-backed chairs on either side of the empty fireplace when we arrived, he smoking his evening pipe of Oronooko, and she working at her embroidery. The moment that I opened the door the man whom I had brought stepped briskly in, and bowing to the old people began to make glib excuses for the lateness of his visit, and to explain the manner in which we had picked him up. I could not help smiling at the utter amazement expressed upon my mother's face as she gazed at him, for the loss of his jack-boots exposed ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... you, Madame, shall I bear your reply to this gentle captain? For by my faith, Madame, you require a more careful go-between than this, one more discreet and less glib ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... to say for himself. Probably it would have struck his critics as little short of profane to make the comparison, otherwise there is a great example that might have stood him and all men not giants and glib of tongue in good stead. It is written of an apostle, and he not the least of the apostles, that he might have been termed in bodily presence mean, and in speech contemptible. But boys and girls are not wont to take up such examples and ponder their ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... kept a man's tongue oiled without any expense; and, as that useful member ought never to grow rusty or creak in turning on its hinges in the case of a practitioner of the law, in whom it should be always glib and easy, he lost few opportunities of improving himself by the utterance of handsome speeches and eulogistic expressions. And this had passed into such a habit with him, that, if he could not be correctly said to have his tongue at ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... have gone beyond them, we have not gone very far, we have not come to perfect knowledge. There is still something around us and within that baffles and surprises us. Events happen which are as mysterious after our glib explanations as they were before. Changes for good or ill take place in the heart of man for which his intellect gives no reason. There is the daily miracle of the human will, the power of free choice, ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke

... bound to look at them), even when they are fallen phantasmal, and to make persons of them again, we will give this Piece; sorry that it is the last we have of that fine hand. How welcome, in the murky puddle of Dryasdust, is any glimpse by a lively glib Wilhelmina, which we can discern to be human! Hear what Wilhelmina says (in a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... swallow up my poem in thy glib clumsiness, Zabastes!" he said lightly—"And thus wilt them hold up the most tasteless portions of the whole for the judgment of the public! 'Tis the manner of thy craft,—yet see!"—and with a dexterous movement of his arm he threw ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli

... on this occasion. With his disappearance from the pulpit, and his subsequent retreat round by the back of the churchyard into the privacy of his own garden, the tongues of the gossips, restrained as long as their minister was likely to be within earshot, broke loose and began to wag with glib rapidity. ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... The money-making lot flourish to some extent in Kimberley, but most of all in Johannesburg. You are soon able to recognise his points and identify him at a distance. He is a little too neatly dressed and his watch-chain is a little too much of a certainty. His manner is excessively glib and fluent, yet he has a trick of furtively glancing round while he talks, as if fearful of being overheard. For the same reason he speaks in low tones. He must often be discussing indifferent topics, but he always looks as if he were hatching a swindle. There is also a curious ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... higher and higher, but there was no indication that Barouche's hopes were sure of fulfilment. His face became paler as the day wore on, and his hands freer with those of his late constituents. Yet he noticed that Carnac was still glib with his tongue and freer with his hands. Carnac seemed everywhere, on every corner, in every street, at every polling booth; he laid his trowel against every brick in the wall. Carnac was not as confident as he seemed, but he was nearing the end of the trail; and his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... so glib as Lon. He looked nervous. He'd come expecting a little glass blowing and here was something strange. He didn't seem to be able to tell her all about himself. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... and most spotless integrity act when they wish to make themselves agreeable to their constituents, and have some end to gain of the country folks. How is it that we allow ourselves not to be deceived, but to be ingratiated so readily by a glib tongue, a ready laugh, and a frank manner? We know, for the most part, that it is false coin, and we take it: we know that it is flattery, which it costs nothing to distribute to every body, and ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... Sol.' 'So you have,' said he. 'Now let me try. Blow, Joe, blow!' Sam, he found Re and La. And in the course of two months we got so we could play Old Hundred. I don't pretend to say we could do it as glib as you run over the ivory, ma'am; but it was Old Hundred, and no mistake. And we played Yankee Doodle, first rate. We called our instrument the Harmolinks; and we enjoyed it all the more because it was our own invention. I tell you what, ma'am, there's music hid away in everything, only we don't ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child

... informs us that the Lord God wrought for Adam and his wife robes of honor from the cast-off skin of the serpent. We learn elsewhere that Nimrod came into possession of Adam's coat through Ham, who stole it from Noah while in the Ark. The glib tongue of tradition also tells how Esau slew Nimrod and appropriated the garment, and wore it for luck when hunting; but that on the day when he went to seek venison at the request of his dying parent, in his hurry he forgot the embroidered robe of Adam, and had bad ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... some confident an' cl'ar; 'somebody downs Burke; that's dead certain. Burke don't put that hole in the middle of his back himse'f; no matter how much he reckons it improves him. Then, when it's someone else who is it? Now,' goes on Texas, as glib as wolves, 'yere's how I argues: You-all don't do it; Peets don't do it; Boggs don't do it; thar's not one of us who does it. An' thar you be plumb down to Pinon Bill. In the very nacher of the deal, when no one else does it an' it's done, Pinon Bill's got to do it. I ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... well ask!" cried Jurgen. He unfolded the cantrap which had been given him by the Master Philologist, and which Jurgen had treasured against the time when more was needed than a glib tongue. "O most unrighteous judges," says Jurgen, sternly, "now hear and tremble! 'At the death of Adrian the Fifth, Pedro Juliani, who should be named John the Twentieth, was through an error in the reckoning elevated to the papal chair as John ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell

... lady of Furness," said the merry taunter, with many interruptions from laughter and want of breath; "thy heels are as glib as thy tongue: for which—oh, oh! I am breathed—blown—dispossessed of my birthright, free quaffing o' the air. Ha, ha! I cannot laugh. Oh! what a mouth didst thou make at old blacksleeves. Gaping so, I wonder he mistook not thy muzzle for one of the vents into his old quarters. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... in him, and drew very sound conclusions from them: but he could not put them into words. He knew that he was right, but he could not make a speech about it. Better that, than be—as too many are—ready to make glib speeches, which they only half believe themselves; ready to deceive themselves with subtle arguments and high-flown oratory, till they can give the most satisfactory reasons for doing the most unsatisfactory and unreasonable things. No, the good soldier was no orator: but he ...
— True Words for Brave Men • Charles Kingsley

... and the third, nine: and some fiue: If this proue true, they'l pay for't. By mine Honor Ile gell'd em all: fourteene they shall not see To bring false generations: they are co-heyres, And I had rather glib my selfe, then they ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... propos; so much so that it frightens me a little. Valerie has, you see, made a mess of it. She has, you see, spoiled her life, in that aspect of it. To mend it now, so completely, to start fresh at—how old is she?—at forty-six, it's just a little glib. Somehow one doesn't get off so easily as that. One can't start so happily at forty-six. Perhaps one is wiser not ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... a new thought. Just why had he chosen St. Martin's? Was it only a coincidence? Or had he, subconsciously at least, picked this particular world? He had always considered himself the unwilling subject of glib persuaders ... but mightn't some inner compulsion of his own have put the monkey on ...
— Monkey On His Back • Charles V. De Vet

... understand me. I turned and twisted my question around and about, trying to strike that man's average, but failed. He could not make out what I wanted. Now Mr. X arrived, faced this same man, looked him in the eye, and emptied this sentence on him, in the most glib and confident way: "Can man ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... it's true! You preach to me no more, You, once so glib with holy words! I am Astonished!. . . (With burlesque fury): Stay, I will surprise you too! Hark! I permit you. . . (He pretends to be seeking for something to tease her with, and to have found it): . . .It is something new!— To—pray ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand

... vocation. To renounce pleasure and discipline the mind; to live a life of self-denial, submitting himself humbly to the inspiration of the great masters. . . . To be serene, like this old man; to avoid that facile, glib, composite note—those monkey-tricks of cleverness. . ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... this you that I hear? Why you are warmer in your denunciation of this little wisp of a woman than you ever were of fat old Madame Gorgon, with her prodigious paste diamonds. Really, you take it too hard. And you, too, who used to skate so nimbly over the glib surface of society, and cut such coquettish figures of eight upon the characters of your friends. You must excuse me, but it seems to me odd that Miss Minerva Tattle, who used to treat serious things so lightly, should ...
— The Potiphar Papers • George William Curtis

... of a fight for independence, were heard throughout Norway. Meetings were held more or less secretly, and at each of them was some one with well-filled pockets and glib tongue, to enlarge on the country's wrongs, and promise assistance from an outside irresistible power as soon as they showed that they meant to strike for freedom. No one openly named the power. ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... one reason for suspecting him. He is too glib with his Princeton. Himmel! Did you ever hear a man talk so fast and so much and use such words? I can speak as good English as any man my age, but there were words, dozens of them, that I had never ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston

... office stool so as to learn the better the workings of its slow machinery. He tells us he only obtained the mastery of his pen by toiling faithfully, but inborn in him was the art of talking. Even as a petti-coated child, we read he gesticulated to aid his glib tongue. W. E. Henley (whose acquaintance Louis made about 1875, and who helped Stevenson with his chary praise and frank criticism) says of his friend, "He radiates talk. He will discourse with you of morals, music, marbles, men, manners, meta-physics, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson

... Smith will seize and hold the following named vessels, viz.: Schooners "Trifle," "Frances E. Burgess," "Despatch," "Washington," and "Glib," wherever he may find them, and will convey them to the nearest place ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... him over the whole thing from bottom to top. Through it all, he kept up the glib patter of a showman; the ironic intent of it becoming more and ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... necessary to spend the greater part of a lifetime in acquiring money and character: a glib tongue, a few high professions of public principle, and a few weeks' canvassing, were found to serve the turn more than ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller

... Cheng's wife, a Miss Wang, and has now been married for the last two years. This Mr. Lien has lately obtained by purchase the rank of sub-prefect. He too takes little pleasure in books, but as far as worldly affairs go, he is so versatile and glib of tongue, that he has recently taken up his quarters with his uncle Mr. Cheng, to whom he gives a helping hand in the management of domestic matters. Who would have thought it, however, ever since his marriage with his worthy wife, not a single person, whether ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... early years of the republic they seem honestly to have dignified their submission as "respect for the popular verdict." They even quoted from the Latin language the sentiment that "the voice of the people is the voice of God." And this hideous blasphemy was as glib upon the lips of those who, without change of mind, were defeated at the polls year after year as upon those of ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... observer, and several hundred rounds of ammunition. The job was an offensive patrol—that is to say, we were to hunt trouble around a given area behind the Boche lines. A great deal of the credit for our "mastery of the air"—that glib phrase of the question-asking politician—during the Somme Push of 1916, belongs to those who organised and those who led these fighting expeditions over enemy country. Thanks to them, our aircraft were able to carry out reconnaissance, artillery ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... her, but she never turned her head. He stood glowering, grinding his teeth together, his glib tongue finding for once no way to better his sorry case. He was the picture of trickery rewarded; I could not repress a grin at him. Marking which, he burst out at me, vehemently, yet in a low tone, for Mayenne ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... interested in all its activities, and prepared to be proud of its achievements, but she possessed none of the instincts of a wire-puller. So long as the class offices were creditably filled she cared not who held them, and comparing her ignorance of parliamentary procedure with the glib self-confidence of Jean, Eleanor and their friends, she even felt grateful to them for rescuing the class from the pitfalls ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton

... I saw made an impression on me and I can't forget them. When I hear my glib young cousin who sits and surveys life from the shelter of his father's income—when I hear him ...
— The Pot Boiler • Upton Sinclair

... to him, and with glib and easy profession said, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest." This seemed all that could have been asked. No man could do more. Yet Jesus discouraged this ardent scribe. He saw that he did not know what he was saying, that ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... I replied, glib enough now. "It was Admiral Napier who gave me my nomination the ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson

... train that would bring him to Chicago at about one o'clock. The other boys, in little groups, or in pairs, were smoking and talking. Tyler wanted to join them, but he did not. They seemed so sufficient unto themselves, with their plans, and their glib knowledge of places, and amusements, and girls. On the train they all bought sweets from the train butcher—chocolate maraschinos, and nut bars, and molasses kisses—and ate them as greedily as children, until their hunger for ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber

... separated their two oddly diverse lives—the one the youth eager to dip into experience, the other a fugitive from a many-sided past that still shadowed and menaced him. He listened with only half an ear as the Chicagoan expounded some glib and ancient principle about the fairy tale being even truer than ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... strikes us in connection with this glib project is the enormous difficulty of carrying it into execution. It is easy, we all know, to call spirits from the vasty deep, but exceedingly difficult to induce them to obey the summons. It is easy, and to ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous

... embodied in Mr. Tulliver's interests and opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hundred pounds, been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's office on his own account. A hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool as a cucumber,—always looking so sure of his game! And it was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was not more like him, but was a bald, round-featured man, with bland manners and fat hands; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon against Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow. ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... a reply, but none came. Her easy assurance staggered him; he could hardly believe that this self-composed, glib-spoken young woman had been at one time his diffident, shy little love. The unhappy man found it very hard to reconcile the two. "Why don't you speak?" she asked impatiently, facing him in a defiant manner; and ...
— If Only etc. • Francis Clement Philips and Augustus Harris

... never have believed. Mr. Temple, a prudent and experienced Minister, is absent, unfortunately, from his post, and his place is filled by Lord Napier, a worthy man, and an active, above all, an active penman, a glib writer if not a great; writing, not quite, but very nearly as well as the captains and admirals themselves. We find this gentleman, like them, ardently hoping that revolt may prosper, and doing his endeavour to realize his desire; dealing out every sort of suggestion and recommendation, ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones

... on, "ought to bring great happiness, great position, great love; and how can I let you throw yourself away at eighteen on a commonplace boy with a glib tongue and a high opinion of himself? Don't tell me that it will make you happy. That would be the worst of all, if you turned out to be so limited that you were satisfied,—that would be a living death. O my darling, I give you my word that if you will give up this idea, ten years from now, when ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller

... plunged into plans. It was a gusty March day when the Falkners went out with the architect to consider the lot, and spent an afternoon trying to decide how to secure the most sun. Falkner, weary of the whole matter, listened to the glib young architect. Another windy day in April they returned to the lot to look at the excavation. The contracts were not yet signed. Lumber had gone soaring, and there was a strike in the brick business, the kind of brick they had chosen being unobtainable, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... glib talker, Oliphant. I admire you. Now listen. You want credit, and you know how to buy it. One way or another, this business must come to an end. I'll take new bills with interest at three months. By that time everything must be square and smooth; otherwise you'll be sorry you and your ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... are given a piece of Greek Testament to translate, for mercy's sake do not be too glib. Dinna translate a thing until you are sure it is there. They have an unholy habit of leaving out a couple of verses some place in the middle, and you're just the one to tumble head-first into the lacuna. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay

... and although he would sometimes keep it quite a while, yet it came always back again at last, not much the worse for its travels into beggardom. And in this way, doubtless, his knowledge grew and his glib, random criticism took a wider range. But my library was not the first he had drawn upon: at our first encounter, he was already brimful of Shelley and the atheistical "Queen Mab," and "Keats—John Keats, sir." And I have often wondered how he came by these acquirements, just as I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... contributors, but the love of man and woman which the stories in general exploited, struck him of Indian ideals as shifty and pestilential. The woman of fiction was equipped with everything to make her as common as man. She was glib, pert, mundane, her mind a chatter-mill; a creature of fur, paint, hair, and absurdly young. The clink of coins was her most favorable accompaniment; and her giving of self was a sort of disrobing formality. The men who pursued her were forward ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... degradation the sweetness of that delicacy descends. It haunts the drunkard's dreams, and breathes a breath of purity into the bosom of the abandoned. That is the power of a noble innocence, a respect for our fellow creatures—glib phrases, but how little understood and acted on! With my father it was quite natural.... He was a hot hater, though, I can tell you. He hated hypocrisy, he hated lying, and he hated presumption and pretentiousness. He loved sincerity, truth, and modesty. ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie

... even of that. But in eighty-five cases out of a hundred none of us have any knowledge of the history of painting or any intelligent idea of why Velasquez is regarded as a master; yet we acquire a glib familiarity with the names of half a dozen cubists or futurists, and bandy them about much as my office boy does the names of his favorite pugilists ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train

... beating of the heart when Miss Ashurst called upon her. Edna was always such a conscientious child about her lessons that Miss Ashurst rather overlooked the fact that upon this occasion she was not quite as glib as usual, and she took her seat with a feeling of great relief, determining that she would not ...
— A Dear Little Girl at School • Amy E. Blanchard

... the ketch's native rig, and to the glib Tripolitanese of the Sicilian pilot, no suspicion was excited in the Philadelphia's watch by the answer to their hail that she had lost her anchors in a gale and would like to run a line to the war-ship and to ride by it through the night. So completely were the Tripolitans deceived ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, that the especial danger of this time is intellectual sciolism, vagueness, sentimental eclecticism—and feeling, too, as Socrates of old believed, that intellectual vagueness and shallowness, however glib, and grand, and eloquent it may seem, is inevitably the parent of a moral vagueness and shallowness, which may leave our age as it left the later Greeks, without an absolute standard of right or of truth, till it tries to escape from its own scepticism, as the later Neoplatonists did, by plunging ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley

... staring at the glib speaker with astounded eyes. "Do you suppose a woman killed your brother?" ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William

... the veil away from his private affairs. What would one give to know the thoughts in that little brown head, on its first look at life! Whatever the reason, he plainly concluded not to take the risk that day, for he disappeared again behind a door that no reporter, however glib or plausible, could pass. Sometimes he vanished with a suddenness that was not natural. Did his heart fail him, or, perchance, his footing give way? For whether he clung to the walls, or made stepping-stones of his brothers and sisters (as do many of his betters, or at least his biggers), who can ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller

... himself like a man of the world and a gentleman, and Coke was convinced that he was a superior man of the world and a superior gentleman, but that he simply had not had words to express his position at the proper time. Coleman was glib. Therefore, Coke had been the victim of an attitude as well as of a benefaction. And so ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane

... the bumble-bee; now, however, he went further, declaring himself, to a subrident host, to be a chuckle-headed ass, only fit to herd with savages. He would listen, with childlike envy, to Adrian, glib of tongue, exchanging with Doria the shibboleths of the Higher Life. He had been considerably impressed by Adrian as the author of a successful novel; but Adrian as a co-treader of the stars with Doria, appeared to him in the light of ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke

... is not Jacques acting Penelope?' said Madame de Bourke, unable to help smiling at her little daughter's glib mythology, while going to the rescue of the embroidery silks, in which her youngest ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the pulpy bodies of the peaches they had on their plates. Luziano Salustri lay back at ease in his chair, his classic head reclining on the velvet cushions, and recited in low and measured tones one of his own poems, caring little or nothing whether his neighbors attended to him or not. The glib tongue of the Marchese Gualdro ran on smoothly and incessantly, though he frequently lost the thread of his anecdotes and became involved in a maze of contradictory assertions. The rather large nose of the Chevalier Mancini reddened visibly ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... bear, "but that was well turned. Now, sir, as you are getting a little glib, will you go still further and tell us ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... have raised such a row about the Guttenchild crowd putting over a big steal on the public that the party leaders are scared stiff. I couldn't pick up a newspaper anywhere without seeing your name in the headlines. It was fierce." Selfridge had found his glib ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine

... you do not love," impetuously returned the other with glib, persistent vehemence. "I would marry the Sheik, I would prize his flocks, his riches; but I love—I ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... agreeable cheer, a man about thirty years of age came in, he said, to make our acquaintance. He was quite a sharp-looking fellow, with small, keen black eyes, a "glib" tongue, and told us that he was an out-and-out rebel, proud to meet us and ready to oblige. Steve forthwith proposed, as evidence of his good-will, an exchange of headgear. He dilated eloquently on the historic value of his own cap, and, while it did not ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore

... attempted; "roughs," who had come in late, occasionally tried to bully those who looked "soft" out of their ground. Being quite a youngster, I was, naturally, the kind of game these gentry were seeking. However, I sought and obtained help among my Kaffrarian friends, so when two glib tongued scoundrels endeavored to claim my burrow on the score of prior occupation, they were soon hunted off. Messrs. Tom Barry and George Ward were entrusted by the Landdrost with the survey. Ward, who had been in the Austrian Army, was an exceedingly handsome man. ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... he turned to Francesca, and told her at a great rate, for in Italian he was glib, to go back to the Signora in the top garden and tell her he had encountered his old friend the Signora Arbuthnot, and was going for a walk with her and would ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim

... hundred dollars. It is no more than just that the laborer should have a share—he only asks a beggarly share—of the prosperity which he has helped to build up." This was specious and taking. Then there came down from the great city a glib person disguised as The Workingman's Friend,—no workingman himself, mind you, but a ghoul that lives upon subscriptions and sucks the senses out of innocent human beings,—who managed to set the place by the ears. The result of all which was that one May ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... I," agreed Mr. Bingle enthusiastically. He had been dazed, yet vastly impressed by the unintelligible phraseology of the stage as it ran from the glib lips of the eager young man. He was flattered by Dick's assumption that he was perfectly familiar with the theatre from box office ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... be talking to a Sea-changeling. They were glib and seductive and always searching for ways to twist your thoughts. But being Rastignac, he had to talk. Moreover, it was so difficult to find anybody who would listen to his ideas that he ...
— Rastignac the Devil • Philip Jose Farmer

... to his craft nowadays, not because he has taste for literature, but because he has an incurable faculty for scribbling. He has no culture, and he soon loses the power of taking pains, if he ever possessed it. But he can talk with glib superficiality and imposing confidence about every conceivable subject, from a play or a picture to a sermon or a metaphysical essay. It is the utter indifference to subject-matter, joined with the vulgar unscrupulousness of pretentious ignorance, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... superior information concerning these things, because I am at their mercy. If I want to know where I am I must find the definitive sign. This accounts for my glib use of the word mucilage, as well as the titles ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane

... have swallowed up Aunt Margaret's money; it might very well have left her defenceless. Her stepmother seemed familiar with its powers, and able to evoke them at will; and though she did not trust her, there was something in her glib utterance that struck fear into the girl's heart. She did not answer, and Mrs. Rainham ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... on my knees I am either stupid; feeling nothing at all, or else my head is full of what I was doing before I began to pray, or what I am going to do as soon as I get through. I do not believe anybody else in the world is like me in this respect. Then when I feel differently, and can make a nice, glib prayer, with floods of tears running down my cheeks, I get all puffed up, and think how much pleased God must be to see me so fervent in spirit. I go down-stairs in this frame, and begin to scold Susan for misplacing my music, ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss

... God, that glib-tongu'd Aiken, My very heart and soul are quakin', To think how we stood sweatin', shakin', An' pish'd wi' dread, While he, wi' hingin' lips and snakin', [sneering] Held ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... I then requested my companions to give a true account of what they had seen. The wonderful things lost nothing in the telling, the climax always being that they had finished the whole world, and had turned only when there was no more land. One glib old gentleman asked, "Then you reached Ma Robert (Mrs. L.)?" They were obliged to confess that she lived a little beyond the world. The presents were received with expressions of great satisfaction and delight; and on Sunday, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... to think lecturing a very simple occupation, requiring only a glib tongue, and a good pair of lungs. Several years ago, I received a letter from a young man in which he wrote: "I heard you lecture last week. I would like to become a lecturer myself. I have no experience ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain

... 'Times' that morning on the subject of the Pontresina accident. It contained only a few of the stock newspaper platitudes of regret at the loss of a distinguished and rising young light of science—the ordinary glib commonplaces of obituary notices which a practised journalist knows so well how to adapt almost mechanically to the passing event of the moment; but they seemed to afford the shattered old country grocer an amount of consolation and solemn relief ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen

... 497; be hoarse with talking. Adj. loquacious, talkative, garrulous, linguacious^, multiloquous^; largiloquent^; chattering &c v.; chatty &c (sociable) 892; declamatory &c 582; open-mouthed. fluent, voluble, glib, flippant; long tongued, long winded &c (diffuse) 573. Adv. trippingly on the tongue; glibly &c adj.; off the reel. Phr. the tongue running fast, the tongue running loose, the tongue running on wheels; all talk and no cider; foul whisperings are abroad [Macbeth]; what a spendthrift ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... this year I debated twelve days, at Burksville, with Presiding Elder Frogge. He was the great champion of Methodism in Southern Kentucky. He had had a great many debates, and, while he was very ready and glib in his line of debating, I soon discovered that his scholarship and reading were both very limited, exceedingly so; and I intentionally widened the range of controversy more than was my wont, to see what he would ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... Carton drank and slept till ten o'clock, and then walked to the chambers of Mr. Stryver. Mr. Stryver was a glib man, and an unscrupulous, and a bold, and was fast shouldering his way to a lucrative practice; but it had been noted that he had not the striking and necessary faculty of extracting evidence from a heap ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... are not more than the glib commonplaces of a man who had found Christianity convenient, but not exactly sufficient. In another place he says: "The wisest course evidently is to combine a portion of the philosophy of the tombstone with a portion of the philosophy ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas

... farther, then. I have told them that I will be their backer at need; I made the deal wi' them direct and ye have nowt to do with it. You are ill to please, young man! You come here with a very singular story, and nowt to back it but a glib tongue and your smooth, innocent-like young face—and you go back hame with a heaped gowpen of gold, and mair in the kist ahint of that. I think ye do ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... interest among the villagers. They came about us, asking who we were and whither we were going. They were greatly excited when they learned that we were escorting deserters and recaptured English prisoners. The real deserters told a glib story of the furious fight they had had with the villains (pointing to the unhappy officer and his men). The villagers threw up their hands with shrill exclamations at this moving recital, and, going up to the cart, gazen open-mouthed and not without a secret ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang

... the boys before me begun to titter and snicker at anybody's havin' the power, and I sez, eyein' 'em sternly, "Do you know what you're laughin' at, young men? You talk about it real glib, but have you any idee of the greatness and overwhelmin' might of the Force you're speakin' of? That Power wuz at Pentecost in cloven tongues of flame, and strange voices and words that no man could utter. Saul laughed at the Power but it struck him blind in the street, and ketched ...
— Samantha at Coney Island - and a Thousand Other Islands • Marietta Holley

... in Guardis, of any country, but France in one respect is better off, in possessing no less than eleven fine paintings of public ceremonials. Guardi may be considered the originator of small sketches, and perhaps the precursor of those glib little views which are handed about the Piazza at the present day. His drawings are fairly numerous, and are remarkably delicate and incisive in touch. A large collection which he left to his son is now in the Museo Correr. ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps

... story pretty glib by this time; I had reeled it off with increasing particulars to the Westchester Park station-master, and the head man at the stables, and General Filbert, and I was so letter-perfect that I had a vision of the whole thing, especially of my talking with the general ...
— Between The Dark And The Daylight • William Dean Howells

... admirable expressions of the individualism of their time. And just as historical facts require readjustment by posterity, so our critical estimate of intellectual and aesthetic evolution requires strict revision. We must not accept the glib statement of the historian, especially of the contemporary historian, that at certain periods intellectual activity and artistic expression were decaying or did not exist. If a convention in one field of intellectual activity ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross

... mutual understanding. They clear up the deadlocks that come from the hard and fast use of terms, they establish mutual charity as an intellectual necessity. The common way of speech and thought which the old system of logic has simply systematized, is too glib and too presumptuous of certainty. We must needs use language, but we must use it always with the thought in our minds of its unreal exactness, its actual habitual deflection from fact. All propositions are approximations to an elusive truth, and we employ them as the mathematician studies the ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... language you please, at will. Do you see? You at once have the same old play in a new tongue. And you can keep changing it from language to language, until your private theatrical pupils have become glib and at home in the speech of all nations. Zum Beispiel, suppose we wish to adjust the play to the French tongue. First, we give Mrs. Blumenthal and Gretchen French names. Next, we knock the German Meisterschaft sentences out of the first scene, and replace them with sentences ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... I was careful never to win from him. He fell into the way of dropping around at my quarters. Like most of his set, the Major was a heavy drinker. When his face would become very hushed and his tongue very glib, I would try to draw things out of him, but I never could get anything worth while. The slightest suspicious question made him close up as ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... which Mr. Bonteen used to prove that a man who has gained credit as a legislator should in process of time become a member of the executive, is trite and common, and was not used by Mr. Bonteen with any special force. Mr. Bonteen was glib of tongue and possessed that familiarity with the place which poor Phineas had lacked so sorely. There was one moment, however, which was terrible to Phineas. As soon as Mr. Bonteen had shown the purpose for ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... of the influence of sympathy. There are some natures that are gifted with a blessed power to bring consolation to men. It is not that they are glib of tongue or facile of speech, but somehow the very pressure of their hand is grateful to the saddened heart. The simple and kindly action, of which we think nothing, may tell powerfully on others, and unclose fountains of feeling deep ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees

... in longhand to his manager's dictation, and was strengthened in the conviction that Penton had stolen that parcel of silver. Usually the manager composed hesitatingly, especially when addressing head office, but now he was glib, and seemed familiar with his subject. He even appeared to be in suppressed good humor ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen

... a familiar story, although the depth of its significance is beyond the compass of any living human intelligence. It is easy to say in a glib sentence that the amount of wealth produced every few years nowadays is equal to all the accumulated wealth of all the centuries down to the early part of the nineteenth; but the social meaning of so great a change baffles all ...
— The business career in its public relations • Albert Shaw

... all about that," said Nancy in a glib voice. "I was at a first-rate school myself for years. Weren't we kept strict, just! My word! we couldn't call our noses our own. The only language was parlez-vous. But it was a select school—very; and now that I have left, I like to feel that ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... marriage of the scheming Yankee, James Early, into the then wealthy and powerful family of Lavillotte, old-timers of Louisiana soil, was considered the opposite of an honor by them, with the exception of the young girl, educated in the north, who had been fascinated by his fine looks and glib tongue. Therefore, when Joyce was born, an edict was issued by its leading members—two patriarchal uncles who held control of the property—that she should be cut off from her maternal rights in the family estate unless allowed to take the family name. ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... his feet and towered over her, his Jotun-frame appearing to swell with irritation. "Do you not know how provoking your words are, that you are so glib of tongue?" he thundered. "Tell shortly what you think of their case; can they last ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... of this Executive Council," Cross intervened. "You're a bit too glib with your tongue ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... that they, too, may have a share in that abundance which is the common birthright of all. Do the political bully, the grafter, the tout, know the meaning of love? No; but they can be taught. Oh, not by the hypocritical millionaire pietists who prate their glib platitudes to their Sunday Bible classes, and return to their luxurious homes to order the slaughter of starving women and babes! They, like their poor victims, are deep under the spell of that mesmerism which tells them that ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... fie upon her! There's language in her eye, her cheek, her lip, Nay, her foot speaks; her wanton spirits look out At every joint and motive of her body. O! these encounterers so glib of tongue That give a coasting welcome ere it comes, And wide unclasp the tables of their thoughts To every tickling reader! Set them down For sluttish spoils of opportunity, And daughters of ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]

... to the knowing ones it is not strange that they should water their stock of superstitious prestige with the less knowing ones from their reservoir of words. Then it is the most natural thing for the glib man to set up the thing he can do most easily as the thing essential to salvation, and thus a shibboleth ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... ideas of his patrons as to teach Cobbett's grammar at school, he always recommended it to me as the one by which alone I could learn to write good English. The learning of anything, especially of arithmetic and grammar, by the glib repetition of rules was a system that he held in contempt. With the public, ability to recite the rules of such subjects as those went farther than any actual demonstration of the power to cipher ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb

... the street a very red-faced, bulbous-nosed and ancient ruin with a patriarchal white beard was preparing to give phrenological readings. I had seen him earlier in the day, and had been amused at his impressive glib patter. Now, however, he had become foolishly drunk. He mounted the same boxes that had served as the executive desk, and invited custom. After a moment's hesitation a burly, red-faced miner shouldered his way through the group and sat down on the edge ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is among the most striking and necessary of the advocate's accomplishments. But, a remarkable ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... groping shuffle of cautious feet, broken by the hollow echo of the guide's voice reciting his sing-song jargon of what he supposed to be English. He held a lantern that revealed a long alleyway of crumbling, mud-colored stone. Nina tried to make out something of his glib discourse, but ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post

... Willett,' I said, 'they found your son's camera on the trail. Your butler exhibits it to the police and reporters and tells them a glib story. He told it to me, also. But what I want to know is, why nobody has thought ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers

... its own history Comfortable reassurance that one was still his client Dumb grief which has never learned to moan Gilt-edged orthodoxy Glib assurances that naive souls make so easily to others He have all the pleasure, I have all the work He was asleep, for he knew not remorse In work alone man rests from grief Kind of sporting energy, a defiant ...
— Quotations from the Works of John Galsworthy • David Widger

... infinite possibilities of moral harm, the more so because of the rather mawkish sentimentality with which it is decked out; for if any scoundrel is really the instrument of God's will, why should he be blamed for his scoundrelism? And we observe how yet once more, by a glib and vapid phrase—"I believe in the {62} infinitude of wisdom and love; there is nothing else"—the fact of evil has been triumphantly got rid of. In words, that is to say, but not in reality; for ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer

... movies, where Amory was fascinated by the glib comments of a man in front of him, as well as by ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... thought he could see Atwater shrug his shoulders and look to him for the required explanation. For Abram was a fellow of few words, and Frank was glib of speech. ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... under such conditions shall be talkative, witty, full of neat swift caricaturing, improvised, unselfconscious; at its worst, glib. Boisterous action often, passionate strain almost never. In Echegaray there are hecatombs, half the characters habitually go insane in the last act; tremendous barking but no bite of real intensity. Benavente has recaptured some of Lope de Vega's marvellous quality ...
— Rosinante to the Road Again • John Dos Passos



Words linked to "Glib" :   glibness, persuasive, pat, slick, smooth-tongued, superficial, glib-tongued, plausible



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