looking glass
Americannoun
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a mirror made of glass with a metallic or amalgam backing.
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the glass used in a mirror.
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anything used as a mirror, as highly polished metal or a reflecting surface.
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of looking glass
First recorded in 1520–30
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
An image like that might have hit its target a few years ago, but we’re well through the looking glass now.
From Slate • Aug. 26, 2025
In 2012, Lauren Rivera, a professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, coined the term "looking glass merit" to describe the unconscious tendency that humans have to define merit in a way that is self-validating.
From Salon • Jan. 30, 2025
It wasn’t that long ago that the country and the world slipped through the looking glass.
From Los Angeles Times • May 9, 2024
To understand what’s up with her mom, she’ll have to go through the looking glass.
From New York Times • Feb. 20, 2024
I pull the side flaps of the mirror in closer, folding myself into the looking glass and blocking out the rest of the store.
From "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
