gleet

English

Alternative forms

• glit

Etymology

Old French glette.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɡliːt/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

Noun

gleet (uncountable)

1. (obsolete, except Scots) Stomach mucus, especially of a hawk.
2. (obsolete, except Scots) Any slimy, viscous substance.
3. (vulgar, slang) A urethral discharge, especially as a symptom of gonorrhea.
   • 1980, Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers:

     There was this Estella, a real drab, being given syph and gon and gleet by Augustus John, and Tommy has her living with him in that place of his in Earl’s Court and going to a doctor, nothing wrong with her actually but there might well have been, and he never touches her, you know.

Verb

gleet (third-person singular simple present gleets, present participle gleeting, simple past and past participle gleeted) (intransitive)

1. To ooze, as gleet (noun sense); to flow in a thin, limpid humour.
   • 1676, Richard Wiseman, “The First Book. A Treatise of Tumours. Chapter XVIII. Of an Oedema.”, in Severall Chirurgicall Treatises, London: […] E. Flesher and J. Macock, for R[ichard] Royston […], and B[enjamin] Took, […], →OCLC, page 89:

     The Lips of the Abſceſs digeſted vvell, but from vvithin it onely gleeted, and thruſt out Fat, vvhich vve daily cut off vvithout the loſs of a drop of blood, and dreſſed up the Abſceſs vvith mundif. ex apio, continuing the uſe of diſcutient Fomentations and Cataplaſins.

   • 1760, Alexander Mackenzie, “A remarkable Separation of part of the thigh bone”, in Medical Observations and Inquiries, Volume 2, William Johnston, page 302:

     [U]pon dilating a ſmall gleeting hole about three inches above the knee, on the outside of the thigh; and introducing a jointed or ſcrew probe, I found the bone carious to ſuch a height and withal the patient ſo emaciated with the tedious diſcharge, and a hectic fever that I diſſuaded attempting the operation […]

2. Of water: to flow slowly.
   • 1705, George Cheyne, “Of the Existence of a Deity”, in Philosophical Principles of Natural Religion: […], London: […] George Strahan […], →OCLC, § XXIX, page 184:

     [Water vapour bubbles] hit againſt the ſides of the more eminent and Mountainous Places, of the Globe, and by this Concuſſion are condenſed, and thus become heavier than the Air they ſvvom in, and ſo gleet dovvn the rocky Caverns of theſe Mountains, […]

Further reading

• “gleet”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Scots

Noun

gleet (uncountable)

1. Stomach mucus, especially of a hawk.
2. Any slimy, viscous substance.