Gloss

A gloss (from the Greek glossa — 'tongue, word') is an explanation of an obscure or rarely used word (archaic, foreign, dialectal) in the text of a manuscript or old print, written in the margin (a marginal gloss) or between the lines (an interlinear gloss). Glosses were made by copyists, editors, or readers, interpreting the 'dark' places of a text. Historically, glosses played an important role in the formation of lexicography: gathered together, they formed the first little glossary-dictionaries and, later, explanatory and translation dictionaries. In early Ukrainian and Church Slavonic book culture, glosses often explained Grecisms or archaic words in the living language of the time, so they are a valuable source for the history of the language. The study of glosses helps to reconstruct the level of learning and the linguistic awareness of the bookmen. A special area is glossology; the totality of glosses to a text is called a glossary. Glosses to early monuments were studied by historians of the Ukrainian language.