glamour

plural glamours · alternative US glamor

1. uncountableOriginally, enchantment; magic charm; especially, the effect of a spell that causes one to see objects in a form that differs from reality, typically to make filthy, ugly, or repulsive things seem beauteous.

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   They often murmur to themselves, they speak To one another seldom, for their woe Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreak Itself abroad; and if at whiles it grow To frenzy which must rave, none heeds the clamour, Unless there waits some victim of like glamour, To rave in turn, who lends attentive show.

   1882, James Thomson (B. V.), The City of Dreadful Night

2. uncountableAlluring beauty or charm (often with sex appeal).

   glamour magazines; a glamour model

3. uncountableAny excitement, appeal, or attractiveness associated with a person, place, or thing; that which makes something appealing.

   The idea of being a movie star has lost its glamour for me.

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   “The North Pole was one of these places, I remember. Well, I haven’t been there yet, and shall not try now. The glamour’s off.”

   1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part I, page 197

   Boys have not lost their love for adventure, and still have `itchy feet.' Many are seeking glamor jobs, want to be writers, detectives, seamen.

   1950 May 7, The Daily Telegraph, Sydney, page 13, column 3

4. countableuncountableAny artificial interest in, or association with, objects, or persons, through which they appear delusively magnified or glorified.
5. countableuncountableA kind of haze in the air, causing things to appear different from what they really are.

   1 more example

   When the golden October comes, with its witching of hazy air that makes a glamour for all things and any landscape, we shall see these offspring of poetic myth stretch out beside the creeks, breaking the tender hulls for their magical chincapins, and feeding on them and on the dreams of which they are the talismans.

   1861 October 28, “The Nelumbium Luteum, or Yellow Egyptian Lotus.”, in Thomas Meehan, editor, The Gardner’s Monthly and Advertiser Horticultural, volume III, number 10, 23 North Sixth Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, page 311

6. countableAn item, motif, person, image that by association improves appearance.
7. countableslangA beautiful woman.

   One of the Qantas staff, a glamour, made her way over to us.

   1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 214

present singular third person glamours · participle present glamouring · participle past glamoured · past glamoured · alternative US glamor

1. transitiveTo enchant; to bewitch.

   Synonyms: beglammer, englamour, witch, bechat, becry, beglammer, bespell, bewitch