gloss over

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gloss over (third-person singular simple present glosses over, present participle glossing over, simple past and past participle glossed over)

1. (transitive, idiomatic) To cover up a mistake or a crime; to hush up or whitewash.

   Synonym: paper over

   They glossed over the problem, hoping that the customers wouldn't notice.

   • 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men‎:

     Plausibility, I know, can only be unmasked by shewing the absurdities it glosses over, and the simple truths it involves with specious errors.

2. (transitive, idiomatic) To treat something with less care than it (in some ways) deserves; to ignore, or at least to discount for the current purposes.

   This book only glosses over quantum mechanics, and doesn't go into detail.