looking glass

noun

1. a mirror made of glass with a metallic or amalgam backing.

2. the glass used in a mirror.

3. anything used as a mirror, as highly polished metal or a reflecting surface.

looking glass

noun

1. a mirror, esp a ladies' dressing mirror

adjective

1. with normal or familiar circumstances reversed; topsy-turvy

   a looking-glass world

Word History and Origins

Origin of looking glass¹

First recorded in 1520–30

Word History and Origins

Origin of looking glass¹

sense 2 in allusion to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass

Example Sentences

We have truly stepped through the looking glass into an upside-down world and inverted reality.

From Salon

But much as I admired the playwright’s ingenious examination of identity politics through the looking glass of farce, I never quite succumbed to the comedy’s demented logic.

From Los Angeles Times

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

It wasn’t that long ago that the country and the world slipped through the looking glass.

From Los Angeles Times

“Hopefully there may be AI regulation someday, but we are already through the looking glass. I do think it’s already too late.”

From Seattle Times

Related Words

• mirror