a hard, brittle, noncrystalline, more or less transparent substance produced by fusion, usually consisting of mutually dissolved silica and silicates that also contain soda and lime, as in the ordinary variety used for windows and bottles.
any artificial or natural noncrystalline and transparent hard substance, such as fused borax, obsidian, or the like.
something made of a noncrystalline and transparent hard substance, such as a windowpane.
a tumbler or other comparatively tall, handleless drinking container.
the quantity contained within a tumbler or other tall, handleless drinking container; a glassful.
She poured two glasses of wine for herself and her guest.
Drink a glass of orange juice and you'll feel better.
a tumbler or other tall, handleless drinking container with its contents.
Hand me that glass of milk.
Also called eyeglasses. glasses, a device to compensate for impaired vision or to protect the eyes from light, dust, and the like, consisting usually of two glass or plastic lenses set in a frame that includes a nosepiece for resting on the bridge of the nose and two sidepieces extending over or around the ears (usually used withpair of ).
a mirror.
things made of glass, collectively; glassware.
They used to collect old glass.
a lens, especially one used as a magnifying glass.
a spyglass.
made of glass.
a glass tray.
furnished or fitted with panes of glass; glazed.
to fit with panes of glass.
cover with or encase in glass.
to coat or cover with fiberglass.
to glass the hull of a boat.
to scan with a spyglass or other optical instrument.
to reflect.
Trees glassed themselves in the lake.
Carter, 1858–1946, U.S. statesman.
Philip, born 1937, U.S. composer.
a hard brittle transparent or translucent noncrystalline solid, consisting of metal silicates or similar compounds. It is made from a fused mixture of oxides, such as lime, silicon dioxide, etc, and is used for making windows, mirrors, bottles, etc
( as modifier )
a glass bottle
any compound that has solidified from a molten state into a noncrystalline form
something made of glass, esp a drinking vessel, a barometer, or a mirror
Also called: glassful. the amount contained in a drinking glass
glassware collectively
See volcanic glass
See fibreglass
to cover with, enclose in, or fit with glass
informal to hit (someone) in the face with a glass or a bottle
Common sand and glass are both made primarily of silicon and oxygen, yet sand is opaque and glass is transparent. Glass owes its transparency partly to the fact that it is not a typical solid. On the molecular level, solids usually have a highly regular, three-dimensional crystalline structure; the regularities distributed throughout the solid act as mirrors that scatter incoming light. Glass, however, consists of molecules which, though relatively motionless like a typical solid, are not arranged in regular patterns and thus exhibit little scattering; light passes directly through. At a specific temperature, called the melting point, the intermolecular forces holding together the components of a typical solid can no longer maintain the regular structure, which then breaks down, and the material undergoes a phase transition from solid to liquid. The phase transition in glass, however, depends on how quickly the glass is heated (or how quickly it cools), due to its irregular solid structure.
First recorded before 900; Middle English noun glas, Old English glæs; cognate with Dutch, German Glas
Glass is the hard, transparent material that's used to make windows. While glass can be strong and sturdy, it's also brittle and can be broken easily by an errant baseball. Glass has all kinds of practical uses, from car windshields to greenhouse windows to jam jars to drinking glasses. When someone offers you a glass of water, they're referring to the vessel itself as a glass and also to amount it can hold — the glassful of liquid. The Old English source of glass is glæs, ultimately from a Proto-Indo-European root that means "to shine."
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"We were new parents, we had never heard about this before and we had basically been told my son was like glass," Ciara, from Arlesey in Bedfordshire, says.
From BBC ● Oct. 4, 2026
Inside, pieces of metal roofing, concrete and broken glass litter the floor.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 4, 2026
One has doors, a heater and a glass sunroof.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026
The basic idea is similar to running a wet finger around the rim of a wine glass.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 1, 2026
I took another sip, this one less tentative, and Luc raised his own glass.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
“There was this whole museum movement to get away from a march through time, to a more episodic or specific sort of story,” John Gray, who succeeded Glass in 2012, told ProPublica.
From Salon ● Sep. 25, 2026
Less Liquid Glass: Remember last year’s interface redesign, the one nobody asked for?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
That was echoed by Scodelario, who plays one of the show's toughest and most assured characters, Susie Glass.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2026
“A lot of low-wage jobs are going to go away,” said Gad Levanon, chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute, a labor research firm.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 29, 2026
“You know very well who he is, young man,” Mrs. Glass said with emphasis.
From "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger
Icy cold glasses of Tell the Truth, a light and lemony ale, sat before them on a high-top table beside a stenographer’s notebook and a laptop.
From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026
In Reneé Rapp–esque wire-framed glasses, he no longer looked like the youngest billionaire in recent history but rather a precariously employed part-time DJ with a menthol-cigarette problem.
From Slate ● Oct. 3, 2026
Officers told the station the man was recording reactions on his Meta glasses and posting them on social media to create viral content.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 2026
So, do the military plane flyovers, cue the performances, fill the wine the glasses, Kritenbrink says.
From BBC ● Sep. 25, 2026
“I don’t have my glasses on. What’s that your T-shirt says?”
From "Legendary Frybread Drive-In" by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Wearing a plain khaki T-shirt and round-rimmed glassed, Griner was ushered a courtroom by police at Khimki District Court outside Moscow, Griner held up personal photographs before taking a seat in the defendant's cage.
From Reuters ● Aug. 2, 2022
"They were nearly glassed over, but the sound is too important," the airline said in 2016.
From BBC ● Feb. 25, 2020
In the end, the president took a brief walk with Mr. Kim around the hotel’s pool, shook his hand and then canceled lunch in a glassed pavilion.
From New York Times ● Mar. 2, 2019
Tickets are sold at a tiny glassed booth.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 5, 2013
A glassed case in the corner held the curios he had collected—specimens of butterflies, a rare arrowhead, a curious rock shaped like a human profile.
From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers
Rubbert was by himself on the face of a cliff in Glacier glassing for grizzlies when a sow grizzly and her cub suddenly appeared.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 7, 2018
I did bricklaying, fibre glassing, I was a nanny, drove those rickshaw things, worked in a sandwich store – anything to get me from one place to the next.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 15, 2012
Andy Carroll is £3,500 lighter in the pocket after pleading guilty to accidentally glassing Michael Cook in a trendy Newcastle nightspot.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 25, 2010
He stops the truck and Mark begins glassing to our right.
From Time Magazine Archive
He looked at Jam, his eyes glassing over with tears.
From "Pet" by Akwaeke Emezi
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.
