glass

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)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).

   “This tabletop is made of glass.”

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

   “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. (broadly, countable, uncountable)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.

   “Would you like a glass of wine?”

   “Fill my glass with milk, please.”

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

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

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

   “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. (countable, uncountable)A mirror.

   “She adjusted her lipstick in the glass.”

   “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.”

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

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

7. (countable, uncountable)A magnifying glass or loupe.
8. (countable, uncountable)A telescope.

   “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 […]”

   “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.”

9. (colloquial, countable, uncountable)A barrier made of solid, transparent material.

   “He caught the rebound off the glass.”

10. (countable, uncountable)A barrier made of solid, transparent material.

    “He fired the outlet pass off the glass.”

11. (countable, uncountable)A barometer.

    “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.”

12. (attributive, countable, uncountable)Transparent or translucent.

    “glass frog;  glass shrimp;  glass worm”

13. (countable, obsolete, uncountable)An hourglass.

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

14. (informal, uncountable)Lenses, considered collectively.

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

15. (archaic, countable)Synonym of window or pane, particularly in vehicles.

    “[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?’”

    “Ladies are usually conveyed about Calcutta, or any where for short distances, in a kind of palanquin, called a boҫhah... Its deep shape, and its seat, much resemble the [English sedan chair]; but having two doors, one on each side, with one window in front, as well as a small one behind, all furnished with Venetians and glasses, give it, in those respects, some claim to alliance with the [chariot].”

verb

1. (transitive)To fit with glass; to glaze.
2. (transitive)To enclose in glass.

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

   “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. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping, transitive)Clipping of fibreglass (“to fit, cover, fill, or build, with fibreglass-reinforced resin composite (fiberglass)”).
4. (UK, colloquial, transitive)To strike (someone), particularly in the face, with a drinking glass with the intent of causing injury.

   “JUDD. Any trouble last night? LES. Usual. Couple of punks got glassed.”

   “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.”

   “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)To bombard an area with such intensity (by means of a nuclear bomb, fusion bomb, etc) as to melt the landscape into glass.

   ““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.

   “Andy took his binoculars and glassed the area below.”

   “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.

   “Happy to glass themselves in so brilliant a mirror.”

   “Where the Almighty's form glasses itself in tempests.”

9. (transitive)To make glassy.

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

10. (intransitive)To become glassy.

    “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.”

name

1. A surname.
2. A solution stack consisting of the GemStone database and application server, Linux operating system, Apache web server, Smalltalk programming language, and Seaside web framework.