Home › Glossary › Letter G

gloam

Archaic Terms
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Gloam is an archaic poetic term for twilight, especially the dim, shadowy light after sunset and before full night.

Detailed Definition
“Gloam” is a literary and partly archaic word for twilight or fading light. Hardy uses it for the dim setting in which strange stars appear over the South African landscape.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Strange stars amid the gloam” evokes twilight’s dim interval between day and night; “The gloaming deepened round the hill” uses the Scots-associated noun for evening dusk; Tennyson’s “the twilight gloom” offers a close poetic setting for gloam; “In urban gloam, windows kindle one by one” adapts the archaic word to a contemporary city scene
Additional Notes
The poetic word “gloam” is uncommon in modern usage and appears in “Strange stars amid the gloam.”; Found in the poem, Drummer Hodge by Thomas Hardy
Also Known As
twilight dusk gloaming
Skip to main content