glance v.

1650s, "cold, icy," from French glacial or directly from Latin glacialis "icy, frozen, full of ice," from glacies "ice," probably from a suffixed form of PIE root *gel- "cold; to freeze" (source also of Latin gelu "frost"). Geological sense "pertaining to glaciers" apparently was coined in 1846 by British naturalist Edward Forbes (1815-1854). Hence figurative sense "at an extremely slow rate," as of the advance of glaciers. Related: Glacially.

1787 (intransitive), from Scottish, where apparently it survived as an alteration of glent, from Middle English glenten "gleam, flash, glisten" (mid-15c.), from a Scandinavian source (compare Norwegian gletta "to look," dialectal Swedish glinta "to shine"), from the group of Germanic *gl- words meaning "smooth; shining; joyous," from PIE root *ghel- (2) "to shine," with derivatives referring to bright materials and gold. Reintroduced into literary English by Burns. Related: Glinted; glinting.

Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to shine;" it forms words for "gold" (the "bright" metal), words denoting colors, especially "yellow" and "green," also "bile, gall," for its color, and a large group of Germanic gl- words having to do with shining and glittering and, perhaps, sliding. Buck says the interchange of words for yellow and green is "perhaps because they were applied to vegetation like grass, cereals, etc., which changed from green to yellow."

It forms all or part of: arsenic; Chloe; chloral; chloride; chlorinate; chlorine; chloro-; chloroform; chlorophyll; chloroplast; cholecyst; choler; cholera; choleric; cholesterol; cholinergic; Cloris; gall (n.1) "bile, liver secretion;" gild; glad; glance; glare; glass; glaze; glazier; gleam; glee; glib; glide; glimmer; glimpse; glint; glissade; glisten; glister; glitch; glitter; glitzy; gloaming; gloat; gloss (n.1) "glistening smoothness, luster;" glow; glower; gold; guilder; jaundice; melancholic; melancholy; yellow; zloty.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit harih "yellow, tawny yellow," hiranyam "gold;" Avestan zari "yellow;" Old Persian daraniya-, Avestan zaranya- "gold;"  Greek khlōros "greenish-yellow color,"  kholos "bile, gall, wrath;"  Latin helvus "yellowish, bay," Gallo-Latin gilvus "light bay;" Lithuanian geltonas "yellow;" Old Church Slavonic zlutu, Polish żółty, Russian zeltyj "yellow;" Latin galbus "greenish-yellow," fellis "bile, gall;" Lithuanian žalias "green," želvas "greenish," tulžis "bile;" Old Church Slavonic zelenu, Polish zielony, Russian zelenyj "green;" Old Irish glass, Welsh and Breton glas "green," also "gray, blue;" Old English galla "gall, bile," geolu, geolwe, German gelb, Old Norse gulr "yellow;" Old Church Slavonic zlato, Russian zoloto, Old English gold, Gothic gulþ "gold;" Old English glæs "glass; a glass vessel."