glee

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Joy; happiness; great delight, especially from one's own good fortune or from another's misfortune.

   I watched with glee while your kings and queens fought for ten decades for the gods they made.

2. 2
   noun

   An unaccompanied part song for three or more solo voices, not necessarily merry.

   Sometimes they had glees, when Captain Strong’s chest was of vast service, and he boomed out in a prodigious bass, of which he was not a little proud.

3. 3
   noun

   great merriment

4. 4
   noun

   malicious satisfaction

5. 5
   noun

   Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.

6. 6
   verb

   To sing a glee (unaccompanied part song).

Etymology

From Middle English gle, from Old English glēo, glīġ, glēow, glīw (“glee, pleasure, mirth, play, sport; music; mockery”), from Proto-West Germanic *glīw, from Proto-Germanic *glīwą (“joy, mirth”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰlew- (“to joke, make fun, enjoy”). Cognate with Scots gle, glie, glew (“game, play, sport, mirth, joy, rejoicing, entertainment, melody, music”), Icelandic glý (“joy, glee, gladness”), Ancient Greek χλεύη (khleúē, “joke, jest, scorn”). A poetic word in Middle English, the word was obsolete by 1500, but revived late 18c.