Glib vs Facile - What's the difference?
glib | facile | Related terms |
Having a ready flow of words but lacking thought or understanding; superficial; shallow.
Smooth or slippery.
Artfully persuasive in nature.
* Shakespeare
To make glib.
(historical) A mass of matted hair worn down over the eyes, formerly worn in Ireland.
*1596 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , IV.8:
*:Whom when she saw in wretched weedes disguiz'd, / With heary glib deform'd and meiger face, / Like ghost late risen from his grave agryz'd, / She knew him not […].
* Spenser
* Southey
(obsolete) To castrate; to geld; to emasculate.
* 1623 : , Act II Scene 1
mud, mire
Easy, now especially in a disparaging sense; contemptibly easy.
* , vol.I, New York, 2001, p.243:
Effortless, fluent (of work, abilities etc.).
* 1932 , (Duff Cooper), Talleyrand , Folio Society 2010, p. 54:
* 1974 , (Graham Greene), (The Honorary Consul) , Pocket Books, New York, p.54:
* 1990 , (Peter Hopkirk), The Great Game , Folio Society 2010, p. 372:
Lazy, simplistic (especially of explanations, discussions etc.).
* 2012 , (Chris Huhne), The Guardian , 3 May 2012:
(chemistry) Of a reaction or other process, taking place readily.
As adjectives the difference between glib and facile
is that glib is having a ready flow of words but lacking thought or understanding; superficial; shallow while facile is easy, now especially in a disparaging sense; contemptibly easy.As a verb glib
is to make glib.As a noun glib
is a mass of matted hair worn down over the eyes, formerly worn in Ireland.glib
English
Etymology 1
Probably modification of Low German glibberig'' (slippery) or a shortening of English ''glibbery (slippery).Adjective
(glibber)- a sheet of glib ice
- a glib''' tongue; a '''glib speech
- I want that glib and oily art, / To speak and purpose not.
Derived terms
* glibly * glibnessVerb
(glibb)- (Bishop Hall)
Etymology 2
From (etyl) glib.Noun
(en noun)- The Irish have, from the Scythians, mantles and long glibs , which is a thick curled bush of hair hanging down over their eyes, and monstrously disguising them.
- Their wild costume of the glib and mantle.
Etymology 3
Compare Old English and dialect (lib) to castrate, geld, Danish dialect (live), Low German and Old Dutch lubben.Verb
(glibb)- Fourteen they shall not see
- To bring false generations. They are co-heirs;
- And I had rather glib myself than they
- Should not produce fair issue.
Noun
Declension
{{sh-decl-noun , gl?b, glíbovi , gliba, glibova , glibu, glibovima , glib, glibove , glibe, glibovi , glibu, glibovima , glibom, glibovima }}facile
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- as he that is benumbed with cold sits shaking, that might relieve himself with a little exercise or stirring, do they complain, but will not use the facile and ready means to do themselves good […].
- His facile disposition made him many friends.
- we can learn the impression that he made upon a stranger and a foreigner at this period, thanks to the facile pen of Fannu Burney.
- "Discipline," Jorge Julio Saavedra was repeating, "is more necessary to me than to other more facile writers.
- A facile and persuasive writer, he also turned out countless newspaper articles on Russian aims in Central Asia and how best these could be thwarted.
- There is a facile view that our green commitments – to tackling climate change, avoiding air and water pollution, protecting natural habitats – are an obstacle to growth. The message of the commodity markets is surely different.
- Decarboxylation of beta-keto acids is facile ...
