Glass noun
Etymology
OE.
glas,
gles, AS.
glæs; akin to D., G., Dan., & Sw.
glas, Icel.
glas,
gler, Dan.
glar; cf. AS.
glær amber, L.
glaesum. Cf.
Glare,
n.,
Glaze,
v. t.
Definitions
- A hard, brittle, translucent, and commonly transparent substance, white or colored, having a conchoidal fracture, and made by fusing together sand or silica with lime, potash, soda, or lead oxide. It is used for window panes and mirrors, for articles of table and culinary use, for lenses, and various articles of ornament.
✍ Glass is variously colored by the metallic oxides; thus, manganese colors it violet; copper (cuprous), red, or (cupric) green; cobalt, blue; uranium, yellowish green or canary yellow; iron, green or brown; gold, purple or red; tin, opaque white; chromium, emerald green; antimony, yellow.
- (Chem.) Any substance having a peculiar glassy appearance, and a conchoidal fracture, and usually produced by fusion.
- Anything made of glass. Especially: (a) A looking-glass; a mirror. (b) A vessel filled with running sand for measuring time; an hourglass; and hence, the time in which such a vessel is exhausted of its sand.
She would not live
The running of one glass.
Shak.
(c) A drinking vessel; a tumbler; a goblet; hence, the contents of such a vessel; especially; spirituous liquors; as, he took a glass at dinner. (d) An optical glass; a lens; a spyglass; -- in the plural, spectacles; as, a pair of glasses; he wears glasses. (e) A weatherglass; a barometer.
✍ Glass is much used adjectively or in combination; as, glass maker, or glassmaker; glass making or glassmaking; glass blower or glassblower, etc.
