glade
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\n \n Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 2, 2024 is:\n \n
\n \n\n glade • \\GLAYD\\ • noun
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A glade is a grassy open space in a forest.
\n\n// She felt the most at ease outdoors, often taking delight in the peaceful glades she came across on her hikes.
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\u201c[Elsie] Reford was no professional gardener, just a very stubborn Ontarian with a lot of money, and although she started in 1926, before the road arrived, she somehow transformed a spruce forest into a glade of delights\u2014in a part of the world where it often snows as late as May.\u201d \u2014 Nina Caplan, Travel + Leisure, 28 Oct. 2023
\n \n \n\n Did you know?
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In his poem \u201cAfter the Winter,\u201d Jamaican-born poet and novelist Claude McKay writes of a \u201csummer isle / Where bamboos spire to shafted grove / And wide-mouthed orchids smile,\u201d declaring that \u201c\u2026 we will build a cottage there / Beside an open glade \u2026\u201d It\u2019s a serene, joyous vision offered to the speaker\u2019s beloved, and it may shine a bit of light on the etymological connection between glade and the adjective glad, besides. Glade, which has been part of the English language since the early 1500s, was originally used not just to indicate a clearing in the woods but often specifically to refer to one filled with sunlight (note that McKay specifies that his glade is \u201copen,\u201d as glades can be in full or partial shade). It\u2019s this sunniness that has led some etymologists over the years to suggest a connection with glad, which in Middle English also meant \u201cshining.\u201d To further the intrigue, a now-obsolete sense of glade once referred to a clear or bright space in the sky, or to a flash of light or lightning.
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