glade

From Middle English glade, glode, glede, meaning a gleam of light or an open, bright space — including a clearing in a forest, a patch of clear sky, or a shining stretch of snow or ice. Its deeper roots are uncertain, but it may trace to Old English *glǣd or *glād, connected to glæd, meaning shining or bright.

The word started out describing light itself — a gleam, a bright patch — and only from there came to mean the open, sunlit space where that light could be seen, like a clearing in the woods.

It's likely tied to Old English glæd ("shining, bright") and to Old Norse glaðr ("bright"), suggesting a shared old idea of brightness running underneath both words.