Glass definitions and example sentences on Wordnik

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American Heritage Dictionary (22)

noun Any of a large class of materials with highly variable mechanical and optical properties that solidify from the molten state without crystallization, are typically made by silicates fusing with boric oxide, aluminum oxide, or phosphorus pentoxide, are generally hard, brittle, and transparent or translucent, and are considered to be supercooled liquids rather than true solids.
noun Something usually made of glass, especially:
noun A drinking vessel.

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A substance resulting from the fusion of a combination of silica (rarely boracic acid) with various bases. See vitreous. It is usually hard, brittle, has a conchoidal fracture, and is more or less transparent, some kinds being entirely so, while other substances to which the name of glass is commonly given are, iu consequence of the impurity of the material or imperfection in the manufacture, only slightly translucent. Glass is an inorganic substance, as would naturally be inferred from its being the result of fusion, but some organic substances are called vitreous. Some rocks have a vitreous structure, like that of artificial glass, as, for instance, obsidian, which is often called volcanic glass. (See obsidian and lava.) The slags produced in furnace operations are vitreous substances, but usually only translucent, and not transparent, because the vitrification is incomplete, and also because they are too deeply colored by metallic oxids. Glass, as the word is generally understood, is an artificial product, and one of the most important of manufactured articles. Its valuable qualities are: the ease with which it can be made to take any desired shape; cheapness, the result of the small cost of the materials of which it is made; durability, and especially resistance to decomposition by acids and corrosive substances generally; transparency, a quality of the utmost importance, as evidenced by its use for windows and in optical and chemical instruments; and the beautiful luster of those kinds which are used for ornamental purposes. Almost the only drawback to these good qualities of glass is its brittleness. The bases used in glass-manufacture are chiefly soda, potash, lime, alumina, and oxid of lead, and the quality of the article produced depends on the nature and amount of the basic material united with the silica. The combinations of silica with a simple alkaline base, either potash or soda, are soluble in water, and are known as water-glass. (See soluble glass, below.) They are useful substances, but very different in their properties from what is ordinarily known as glass. In addition to the alkaline base there must be an alkaline earth or a metallic oxid. The cheapest glass is that used for bottles; in this the basic material is chiefly lime, with some potash or soda, and alumina. Glass for medicine-bottles differs from ordinary bottle-glass in containing more potash than the latter, and also in the greater purity of the material used. Window-glass usually contains both soda and lime: here absence of any tinge of color is important, except in the most inferior qualities. Potash and soda render the glass more fusible; alumina diminishes its fusibility; lime makes it harder; lead gives luster, fusibility, and high refractive power. Hence, in glass which is to be cut and polished, where beauty is of prime importance, the base is chiefly oxid of lead, which amounts in some cases to half the weight of the material used. Glass in which lead is the essential base is called crystal or flint-glass. (See these words.) The finer kinds of glass without lead are called crown-glass. The tools employed by the glass-blower are simple, but require dexterity for their use. The process of manufacture depends on the fact that, at a very high temperature, glass is a liquid which can be readily cast; at a full red heat it is soft, ductile, and easily welded; when cold, it is hard and brittle. Glass to be serviceable must be annealed after the desired form has been given to it. This is done by heating it nearly to the melting-point, and then allowing it to cool very slowly in an annealing-chamber. By the action of hydrofluoric acid, which combines readily with the silica in glass, etching can be done on a glass surface. When cold, glass can be ground or cut upon a wheel, scratched by a diamond-point (by which means sheets of glass are readily divided or shaped, as they will break easily along the lines of such scratches), cut and depolished, or “ground” by a sand-blast, and brought to an exceedingly high polish. Specimens of Egyptian glass are in existence which can be dated back to about 2400 B. c.; in Egyptian sculptures of 4000 b. c. glass bottles are undoubtedly represented; and among the bas-reliefs of Beni Hassan, about 2000 b. c., various operations of glass-blowing are portrayed. In historical Egyptian, Phenician, and Roman antiquity, glass was in familiar use. The great quantities of examples of ancient glass vessels which have been exhumed from tombs, etc., formerly clear and transparent, are now as a rule characterized by a brilliant iridization like that of mother-of-pearl. This iridization is due to the imperfect composition of the glass, which has thus become affected by moisture during its stay under ground. Though well known to the Greeks, glass was in less common use among them, owing to the perfection of their ceramic ware. In Europe the most artistic manufactures of glass have been, since the middle ages, those of Venice, characterized by great elegance of form and lightness and thiuness of substance, and those of Bohemia, of later date than the Venetian, and especially notable not only for grace of form, but for enameling, cutting, and engraved decoration. They keep the wind out of their windows with glass, for it is there much used. Sir T. More, Utopia, II. ii. 2. I must be married to my brother's daughter, Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass. Shak., Rich. III., iv. 2. Cups Where nymph and god ran ever round in gold — Others of glass as costly. Tennyson, Lover's Tale, iv.
A plate, screen, vessel, instrument, etc., made of glass.
A plate or pane of glass inserted in the frame of a window, picture, clock, hotbed, etc., to admit the light or permit a view, while excluding wind, rain, dust, or other interference.

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Compared with the highly organized and structured lithium iron phosphate crystals, this glass is amorphous and disorderly at the atomic scale, creating lots of possible entry routes for ions and helping, essentially, to funnel the ions into the cathode material. — SEEDMAGAZINE.COM
We also know that can all change in a "New York minute" and selling can quickly return as the glass is again perceived as "half empty". — US Market Commentary from Seeking Alpha
But behind the glass is a woman whose determination carried her and her eight kids from a rural village in Mexico to a better life in the United States. — NEWS updates from www.voiceofsandiego.org
I happen to have been on jobsites where the glass was all measured wrong and they were going to toss it in the dumpster /. — Mother Earth News Latest 10 Articles
If the glass is there, how did they minimize the effects? — MetaFilter Projects

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