Glider

How to spell glider

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce glider

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does glider mean?

1. nounAn engineless aircraft that flies by riding rising air currents.
2. nounA chair or seat that moves back and forth on a smooth runner mechanism.

Glider in a sentence

• The pilot launched the glider from the top of the ridge.

• She rocked the baby to sleep in the nursery glider.

• A winch towed the glider into the sky before releasing the cable.

• They bought a cushioned glider for the front porch.

Where does glider come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes from glide plus the agent suffix -er, where glide descends from the Old English verb glidan, meaning 'to move smoothly and effortlessly', as ice or water might. That verb belonged to a wider Germanic family, with relatives such as the Dutch glijden and the German gleiten, all carrying the same sense of slipping along without friction. For centuries glide simply described smooth motion of any kind, and adding -er gave a noun for a person or thing that glides. The modern meaning of an engineless aircraft that rides air currents took hold in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as pioneers experimented with unpowered flight. The spelling is straightforward once you remember it keeps the silent letters of glide: the long 'i' sound is carried by the i and the e of the original root before the suffix is attached.

How the word is built

• glide (from Old English glidan: to move smoothly)
• -er (agent/instrument suffix)