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glass

Pronunciation: /ɡlɑːs/

The English word “glass” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. 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).
  2. Any amorphous solid (one without a regular crystal lattice).
  3. A vessel from which one drinks, especially one made of glass, plastic, or similar translucent or semi-translucent material.
  4. The quantity of liquid contained in such a vessel.
  5. Glassware.
  6. A mirror.
  7. A magnifying glass or loupe.
  8. A telescope.
  9. The backboard.
  10. The clear, protective screen surrounding a hockey rink.
  11. A barometer.
  12. Transparent or translucent.
  13. An hourglass.
  14. Lenses, considered collectively.
  15. Synonym of window or pane, particularly in vehicles.

verb

  1. To fit with glass; to glaze.
  2. To enclose in glass.
  3. To strike (someone), particularly in the face, with a drinking glass with the intent of causing injury.
  4. To bombard an area (most often a planet) with such intensity (by means of a nuclear bomb, fusion bomb, etc) as to melt the landscape into glass.
  5. To view through an optical instrument such as binoculars.

Etymology

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 *ǵʰleh₁- (“to shine, shimmer, glow”). Cognate with West Frisian glês, Low German and German Glas, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish glas, Norwegian Bokmål…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.