Gloss (annotation)

The German Romantic movement used the expression of gloss for poems commenting on a given other piece of poetry, often in the Spanish Décima style.

As such, glosses vary in thoroughness and complexity, from simple marginal notations of words one reader found difficult or obscure, to interlinear translations of a text with cross references to similar passages.

[2][3] In the 16th century, the spelling was refashioned as gloss to reflect the original Greek form more closely.

[4] Glosses and other marginal notes were a primary format used in medieval Biblical theology and were studied and memorized for their own merit.

Indeed, in one case, it is generally reckoned that an early gloss explicating the doctrine of the Trinity made its way into the Scriptural text itself, in the passage known as the "three heavenly witnesses" or the Comma Johanneum, which is present in the Vulgate Latin and the third and later editions of the Greek Textus Receptus collated by Erasmus (the first two editions excluded it for lack of manuscript evidence), but is absent from all modern critical reconstructions of the New Testament text, such as Westcott and Hort, Tischendorf, and Nestle-Aland.

In common law countries, the term "judicial gloss" refers to what is considered an authoritative or "official" interpretation of a statute or regulation by a judge.

[5] Judicial glosses are often very important in avoiding contradictions between statutes, and determining the constitutionality of various provisions of law.

A gloss, or glosa, is a verse in traditional Iberian literature and music which follows and comments on a refrain (the "mote").