vitrify
Americanverb (used with or without object)
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to convert or be converted into glass.
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to make or become vitreous.
verb
Other Word Forms
- nonvitrified adjective
- unvitrifiable adjective
- unvitrified adjective
- vitrifiability noun
- vitrifiable adjective
Etymology
Origin of vitrify
Explanation
If you vitrify something, you turn it into glass or a glass-like substance. Glassmakers can vitrify sand to make glass. Chemists study how substances change. One such extreme change is when a substance is vitrified, or turned into glass through heating and rapid cooling. Scientists can vitrify substances in the lab. Substances can also be vitrified in nature — due to a lightning strike, for instance. Vitrify is related to vitreous, meaning “glassy.”
Vocabulary lists containing vitrify
The Mayor of Casterbridge
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Red, White & Royal Blue
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The Innocents Abroad
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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.
DOE’s Savannah River, S.C., site began operating a facility to vitrify less complex radioactive waste in 1996.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 14, 2024
The plant will vitrify much of the 56 million gallons of radioactive and hazardous chemical waste in underground tanks, some filled with waste as early as the 1940s.
From Seattle Times • Mar. 14, 2024
The decision to vitrify the waste in Hanford’s 177 storage tanks goes back to what’s known as the Tri-Party Agreement, a legal agreement and consent order between the U.S.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 25, 2024
The process to vitrify waste at Hanford is highly complex and involves multiple steps.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 25, 2024
We cannot but suspect any medium under which the pigments will not vitrify.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 383, September 1847 by Various
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.
