Glout

Glout (pronounced glout or gloot)

(1) To scowl or frown (archaic).

(2) To stare gloatingly (obsolete).

(3) To look sullen (modern revival for selfies & memes).

1400–1450: The origin is in late Middle English and although of uncertain origin, it’s related to the earlier use where to glout was “gloatingly to stare”.  The root, the Middle English glouten (to scowl) is thought derived from the Old Norse goltta (scornfully to grin) but, although likely, the link is undocumented.  Something tending to wards a glout would be gloutish and a hint of the look in another object would be gloutesque but both those adjectives are non-standard.  Although described as archaic as long ago as the eighteenth century, glout enjoyed a bit of a (brief) early twenty-first century revival as a descriptor of selfies and memes although the more evocative "resting bitch face" (RBF) tended to be preferred.  In the way the social works, the resurrected glout soon faded from use.  Glout is a noun & verb, glouted & glouting are verbs; the noun plural is glouts.

Noted glouters, glouting: Paris Hilton (b 1981; top left), Britney Spears (b 1981; top centre), Lindsay Lohan (b 1986; top right), Cardinal George Pell (1941-2023; bottom left), Eric Abetz (b 1958; Liberal Party senator for Tasmania, Australia 1994-2022, member of the Tasmanian House of assembly since 2024, bottom centre) and crooked Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013).

Sometimes, some have cheerful faces and eyes full of joy while others can but glout.  Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021, left) and Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013, right) pause for a photo opportunity, the Vatican, May 2017.

His Holiness may have been reflecting on his words in: True Christians have cheerful faces and eyes full of joy, the homily he’d three months earlier delivered during morning Mass in the Casa Santa Marta.  His theme had been an invitation for the faithful to reflect on the relationship between God and money and the notion we cannot serve two masters so must choose between them.  He took his reading from Matthew 19, Mark 10 & Luke 18 which include the famous passage: “I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God”, explaining the message of Jesus remains those who give up the pursuit of money will be rewarded for “there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the Gospel, who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come”.  “The Lord is incapable of giving less than everything” the Pope said, “when he gives us something, he gives all of himself.”  “A cheerful face and eyes full of joy” Francis concluded: “these are the signs that we’re following this path of all and nothing, of fullness emptied out.”