Quickly looked at something for a brief moment.
Possibly from Middle English 'glance,' with obscure origins. Some scholars suggest it may be related to 'glint' or 'glance' as a ricochet—the idea that your eye 'bounces' off something quickly, like a stone skipping across water.
A glance is literally just a moment—languages often use light or skipping metaphors for quick looks. In French it's 'coup d'oeil' (strike of the eye), in Spanish 'vistazo' (quick sight), showing how different cultures describe that split-second of attention the same way.
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