smalt

[ smawlt ]

/ smɔlt /

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noun

a coloring agent made of blue glass produced by fusing silica, potassium carbonate, and cobalt oxide, used in powdered form to add color to vitreous materials.

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Origin of smalt

1550–60; <Middle French <Italian smaltosmalto

Words nearby smalt

small talk, small time, small-town, small white, small wonder, smalt, smaltite, smalto, smaragd, smaragdine, smaragdite

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How to use smalt in a sentence

The inferior kinds of smalt are occasionally adulterated with chalk.
Field's Chromatography|George Field
This blue is distinguished from smalt by dissolving in acetic acid.
Field's Chromatography|George Field
The calx of cobalt is of a deep blue colour, which, when fused, makes the blue glass called smalt.
Heads of Lectures on a Course of Experimental Philosophy: Particularly Including Chemistry|Joseph Priestley
The smalt is usually composed of one part of calcined cobalt, fused with two parts of powder of flint and one of pot-ash.
Heads of Lectures on a Course of Experimental Philosophy: Particularly Including Chemistry|Joseph Priestley

Sometimes a little indigo blue or smalt is also added, when a peculiar bloom colour is desired.
A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines|Andrew Ure

British Dictionary definitions for smalt

smalt

/ (smɔːlt) /

noun

a type of silica glass coloured deep blue with cobalt oxide

a pigment made by crushing this glass, used in colouring enamels

the blue colour of this pigment

Word Origin for smalt

C16: via French from Italian smalto, of Germanic origin; related to smelt 1

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012