"in a glow, glowing," 1817 (in Coleridge), from a- (1) + glow (v.). The figurative sense of "flushed with pleasurable excitement" is from 1830.
Entries linking to aglow
a- 1
prefix or inseparable particle, a conglomerate of various Germanic and Latin elements.
In words derived from Old English, it commonly represents Old English an "on, in, into" (see on (prep.)), as in alive, above, asleep, aback, abroad, afoot, ashore, ahead, abed, aside, obsolete arank "in rank and file," etc., forming adjectives and adverbs from nouns, with the notion "in, at; engaged in." In this use it is identical to a (2).
It also can represent Middle English of (prep.) "off, from," as in anew, afresh, akin, abreast. Or it can be a reduced form of the Old English past participle prefix ge-, as in aware.
Or it can be the Old English intensive a-, originally ar- (cognate with German er- and probably implying originally "motion away from"), as in abide, arise, awake, ashamed, marking a verb as momentary, a single event. Such words sometimes were refashioned in early modern English as though the prefix were Latin (accursed, allay, affright are examples).
In words from Romanic languages, often it represents reduced forms of Latin ad "to, toward; for" (see ad-), or ab "from, away, off" (see ab-); both of which by about 7c. had been reduced to a in the ancestor of Old French. In a few cases it represents Latin ex.
[I]t naturally happened that all these a- prefixes were at length confusedly lumped together in idea, and the resultant a- looked upon as vaguely intensive, rhetorical, euphonic, or even archaic, and wholly otiose. [OED]
glow v.
Old English glowan "to glow, shine as if red-hot," from Proto-Germanic *glo- (source also of Old Saxon gloian, Old Frisian gled "glow, blaze," Old Norse gloa, Old High German gluoen, German glühen "to glow, glitter, shine"), from PIE root *ghel- (2) "to shine," with derivatives referring to bright materials and gold. Figuratively from late 14c. Related: Glowed; glowing. Swedish dialectal and Danish glo also have the extended sense "stare, gaze upon," which is found in Middle English.