glass

• glasse (obsolete)

From Middle English glas, from Old English glæs, from Proto-West Germanic *glas, from Proto-Germanic *glasą, possibly related to Proto-Germanic *glōaną (“to shine”) (compare glow), and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵʰel- (“to shine, shimmer, glow”). Cognate with West Frisian glês, Dutch glas, Low German Glas, German Glas, Swedish glas, Icelandic gler.

• enPR: gläs, IPA^(key): /ɡlɑːs/
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [ɡlɑːs]

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

  • (General Australian, New Zealand) IPA^(key): [ɡläːs], [ɡlɐːs]
• enPR: glăs, IPA^(key): /ɡlæs/
  • (US, Canada) IPA^(key): [ɡlæs], [ɡlɛəs], [ɡleəs]

• Audio (US)

  (file)

  • (Northern England, Scotland, Ireland) IPA^(key): [ɡlas], [ɡläs]
• Rhymes: -ɑːs, -æs

a glass (drinking vessel) of milk

glass (countable and uncountable, plural glasses)

1. (usually uncountable) An amorphous solid, often transparent substance, usually made by melting silica sand with various additives (for most purposes, a mixture of soda, potash and lime is added).

   The tabletop is made of glass.

   A popular myth is that window glass is actually an extremely viscous liquid.

   • 2013 September-October, Henry Petroski, “The Evolution of Eyeglasses”, in American Scientist:

     The ability of a segment of a glass sphere to magnify whatever is placed before it was known around the year 1000, when the spherical segment was called a reading stone, essentially what today we might term a frameless magnifying glass or plain glass paperweight.

2. (countable, uncountable, by extension) Any amorphous solid (one without a regular crystal lattice).

   Metal glasses, unlike those based on silica, are electrically conductive, which can be either an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the application.

3. (countable) A vessel from which one drinks, especially one made of glass, plastic, or similar translucent or semi-translucent material.

   Fill my glass with milk, please.

4. (metonymically) The quantity of liquid contained in such a vessel.

   There is half a glass of milk in each pound of chocolate we produce.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter II, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     Here was my chance. I took the old man aside, and two or three glasses of Old Crow launched him into reminiscence.

   • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter III, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

     At half-past nine on this Saturday evening, the parlour of the Salutation Inn, High Holborn, contained most of its customary visitors. […] In former days every tavern of repute kept such a room for its own select circle, a club, or society, of habitués, who met every evening, for a pipe and a cheerful glass.

5. (uncountable) Glassware.

   We collected art glass.

6. A mirror.
   • 1599, Thomas Dekker, Old Fortunatus, Act III, Scene 1, J.M. Dent & Co., 1904, p. 67,

     […] for what lady can abide to love a spruce silken-face courtier, that stands every morning two or three hours learning how to look by his glass, how to speak by his glass, how to sigh by his glass, how to court his mistress by his glass? I would wish him no other plague, but to have a mistress as brittle as glass.

   • 1769, Firishta, translated by Alexander Dow, Tales translated from the Persian of Inatulla of Delhi, volume I, Dublin: P. and W. Wilson et al., page 11:

     Beholding her charms in the glaſs, ſhe wandered over a wilderneſs of vain fancies.

   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 216:

     As of old, he took down his portable glass hanging on a nail, and carefully wiping it, replaced it in its case.

   She adjusted her lipstick in the glass.

7. A magnifying glass or telescope.
   • 1912, The Encyclopædia of Sport & Games:

     Haviers, or stags which have been gelded when young, have no horns, as is well known, and in the early part of the stalking season, when seen through a glass, might be mistaken for hummels […]

   • 1923 October, Robert Frost, “[Notes.] The Star-splitter.”, in New Hampshire […], New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, →OCLC, page 29:

     He got a good glass for six hundred dollars.
     His new job gave him leisure for star-gazing.
     Often he bid me come and have a look
     Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside,
     At a star quaking in the other end.

8. (sports) A barrier made of solid, transparent material.
   1. (basketball, colloquial) The backboard.

      He caught the rebound off the glass.

   2. (ice hockey) The clear, protective screen surrounding a hockey rink.

      He fired the outlet pass off the glass.

9. A barometer.
   • 1938, Louis MacNeice, “Bagpipe Music”, in The Earth Compels‎, page 59:

     The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall for ever / But if you break the bloody glass you won’t hold up the weather.

10. (attributive, in names of species) Transparent or translucent.

    glass frog;  glass shrimp;  glass worm

11. (obsolete) An hourglass.
    • c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

      Were my Wiues Liuer / Infected (as her life) ſhe would not liue / The running of one Glaſſe.

12. (uncountable, photography, informal) Lenses, considered collectively.

    Her new camera was incompatible with her old one, so she needed to buy new glass.

13. (now rare) A pane of glass; a window (especially of a coach or similar vehicle).
    • 1790, Jane Austen, “Love and Freindship”, in Juvenilia:

      [N]o sooner had we entered Holbourn than letting down one of the Front Glasses I enquired of every decent-looking Person that we passed ‘If they had seen my Edward?’

• (vessel): See Category:en:Vessels
• (material): lechatelierite, pyrex, Pyrex

• glaze
• glazier
• glazing

• → Gulf Arabic: قلاص (gḷāṣ)
• → Fiji Hindi: gilaas
• → Japanese: グラス (gurasu)
• → Kikuyu: ngirathi
• → Malay: gelas, ݢلس

glass (third-person singular simple present glasses, present participle glassing, simple past and past participle glassed)

1. (transitive) To fit with glass; to glaze.
2. (transitive) To enclose in glass.
   • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:

     As Iewels in Christall for some Prince to buy. / Who tendring their own worth from whence they were glast,

   • 1664, Robert Boyle, “Experiment XLIV”, in Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours. […], 2nd edition, London: […] Henry Herringman […], published 1670, →OCLC, part III (Containing Promiscuous Experiments about Colours), page 333:

     And to ſatisfie my ſelf, that the diverſity came not from the Paper, vvhich one might ſuſpect capable of imbibing the Liquor, and altering the Colour, I made the Tryal upon a flat piece of purely VVhite Glaſs'd Earth, […]

3. (transitive) Clipping of fibreglass. To fit, cover, fill, or build, with fibreglass-reinforced resin composite (fiberglass).
4. (transitive, UK, colloquial) To strike (someone), particularly in the face, with a drinking glass with the intent of causing injury.
   • 1987, John Godber, Bouncers page 19:

     JUDD. Any trouble last night?

     LES. Usual. Couple of punks got glassed.

   • 2002, Geoff Doherty, A Promoter's Tale page 72:

     I often mused on what the politicians or authorities would say if they could see for themselves the horrendous consequences of someone who’d been glassed, or viciously assaulted.

   • 2003, Mark Sturdy, Pulp page 139:

     One night he was in this nightclub in Sheffield and he got glassed by this bloke who’d been just let out of prison that day.

5. (transitive, science fiction) To bombard an area with such intensity (by means of a nuclear bomb, fusion bomb, etc) as to melt the landscape into glass.
   • 2003, Eric Nylund, Halo: First Strike, New York: Del Rey, →ISBN, page 155:

     “The Covenant don’t ‘miss’ anything when they glass a planet,” the Master Chief replied.

6. (transitive) To view through an optical instrument such as binoculars.
   • 2000, Ben D. Mahaffey, 50 Years of Hunting and Fishing, page 95:

     Andy took his binoculars and glassed the area below.

   • 2000, Field & Stream, volume 105, number 6, page 87:

     One of the keys to glassing effectively is supporting your binoculars. Advanced glassers who scan lots of country for long periods of time, or who use binoculars of 10X power or more, often use a lightweight camera tripod […]

7. (transitive) To smooth or polish (leather, etc.), by rubbing it with a glass burnisher.
8. (archaic, reflexive) To reflect; to mirror.
   • 1856, John Lothrop Motley, The Rise of the Dutch Republic. A History. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

     Happy to glass themselves in so brilliant a mirror.

   • 1818, Lord Byron, “Canto IV”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. Canto the Fourth, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, stanza LXXXIII:

     Where the Almighty's form glasses itself in tempests.

9. (transitive) To make glassy.
   • 2018, Harry Leon Wilson, Ruggles of Red Gap, →ISBN, page 199:

     Not only were his eyes averted from mine, but they were glassed to an uncanny degree.

10. (intransitive) To become glassy.
    • 2012, Keith Duggan, Cliffs Of Insanity: A Winter On Ireland's Big Waves, page 32:

      Bourez had timed it perfectly: a wind that was forecast for the morning began to stir just after his arrival and the sea glassed off for a brief period before the waves grew bigger and bigger.

• slags

From Old Irish glas (“blue-grey, green”), from Proto-Celtic *glastos.

glass

1. green (of nature), verdant

   Ta'n londaig hannah jeeaghyn slane glass. ― The lawn looks quite green already.

   yn faarkey glass tonnagh foin ― the green billowy sea under us

   yn awin ghlass ― the green river

2. grey (of animal), ashen (colour)
3. soft, pale, pasty
4. raw, unfledged, sappy
5. callow (of youth)

• coo glass (“greyhound; tope”)
• glassrey

From Old Irish glas (“lock, clasp”).

glass m (genitive singular glish or gleish, plural glish or gleish)

1. lock

   Hooar eh y glass er y dorrys roish. ― He found himself locked out.

   T'eh fo glass. ― He is behind bars.

   Ta glass er my hengey. ― My lips are sealed.

   Ta glass y dorrys er y çheu sthie. ― The door locks on the inside.

   Ta'n ogher shoh gentreil y glass. ― This key goes in the lock.

   Vrish ad y glass. ― They forced the lock.

glass (verbal noun glassey)

1. lock up, secure

glass

1. Alternative form of glas

From Middle Low German glas.

glass n (definite singular glasset, indefinite plural glass, definite plural glassa or glassene)

1. glass (a hard and transparent material)
2. a glass (container for drink made of glass)

   et glass vin - a glass of wine

3. a small container, such as a jar or bottle

• glas (Nynorsk)

• “glass” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

• glace (archaic)

Borrowed from French glace.

• IPA^(key): /ɡlas/

• audio

  (file)

glass c

1. (countable, uncountable) ice cream

   Vill du ha en glass?

   Do you want an ice cream?

   äta glass till middag

   have ice cream for dinner

2. (countable, uncountable) frozen fruit juice, flavored sugar water or the like, especially when served as a popsicle or freeze pop

   Synonym: isglass

• glas (“glass”)

• glass in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• glass in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• glass in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

• slags