Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, resembling, or having the nature of glass; glassy.
- adj. Obtained or made from glass.
- adj. Of or relating to the vitreous humor.
- n. The vitreous humor.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of, pertaining to, or obtained from glass; resembling glass.
- Consisting of glass: as, a vitreous substance.
- Resembling glass in some respects; glassy: thus, an object may be vitreous in its hardness, in its gloss, in its structure, etc. Specifically, in anatomy and zoology, vitriform; glassy; like glass— in transparency, as a clear jelly may resemble glass; hyaloid: as, the vitreous body or humor of the eye; in translucency, thinness, or smoothness; hyaline: as, a vitreous shell; in hardness and brittleness: as, the vitreous tablets of the skull; in mode of cleavage; clean-cut: as, a vitreous fracture; in chemical composition; silicious: as, a vitreous sponge.
- n. The vitreous body of the eye.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of, or resembling glass; glassy
- adj. Of, or relating to the vitreous humor of the eye
- adj. having a shiny nonporous surface
- adj. Of a semi-crystalline substance where the atoms exhibit short-range order, but without the long-range order of a crystal
- adj. positive (of electric charge)
- n. The vitreous humor.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Consisting of, or resembling, glass; glassy.
- adj. Of or pertaining to glass; derived from glass.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. of or relating to or constituting the vitreous humor of the eye
- adj. (of ceramics) having the surface made shiny and nonporous by fusing a vitreous solution to it
- adj. relating to or resembling or derived from or containing glass
Etymologies
- From Latin vitreus, from vitrum, glass.
Examples
“If it attracts it, it is certainly of the kind of electricity which I call vitreous; if, on the contrary, it repels it, it is of the same kind of electricity with the silk -- that is, of the resinous.”
A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume II: The Beginnings of Modern Science
“This principle is that there are two distinct electricities, very different from each other, one of which I call vitreous electricity and the other resinous electricity.”
A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume II: The Beginnings of Modern Science
“The search for native cobalt, especially outside of Saxony or the Erzgebirge, was tied to the development of zaffer and smalt industries — refined versions of cobalt used by painters and in vitreous colormaking — and to recognition of the quality of the cobalt-based colors.”
“Another key aspect of textile coloration often attributed to Dufay was the description of mordant action, a term and concept that was already common in vitreous color production.”
“About 1733, as we have seen, Dufay had demonstrated that there were two apparently different kinds of electricity; one called vitreous because produced by rubbing glass, and the other resinous because produced by rubbed resinous bodies.”
A History of Science: in Five Volumes. Volume II: The Beginnings of Modern Science
“It did not separate under the axe into misshapen pieces, with faces of every possible variation from regularity, that is, with what is called vitreous fracture, but rather separated into a number of nuts of limpid ice, each being of a prismatic form, and of much regularity in shape and size.”
“Some philosophers have endeavoured to account for this phenomenon by supposing the existence of two electric fluids which may be called the vitreous and resinous ones, instead of the plus and minus of the same ether.”
The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation
“That which is accumulated on the surface of smooth glass, when it is rubbed with a cushion, is here termed vitreous ether; and that which is accumulated on the surface of resin or sealing-wax, when it is rubbed with a cushion, is here termed resinous ether; and a combination of them, as in their usual state, may be termed neutral electric ethers.”
The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society A Poem, with Philosophical Notes
“All of these beads are translucent to a greater or lesser degree and have what is termed a vitreous lustre: a glassy sheen when polished.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘vitreous’.
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Minerals and Mineralogy
List of minerals, elements, group names and geochemistry terms encountered in the science of mineralogy. I've chosen to avoid capital letters in most examples, though a great many mineral names hon...
galkhaite, xanthoconite, pyrostilpnite, polybasite, pyrargyrite, djurleite, digenite, covellite, chalcocite, cerargirite, acanthite, aeschynite and 2536 more...
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Do you find it funny?
Strange words I come across every now and then.
neornithe, oriel, vitreous, zenith, saunter, ebb, vacillation, arbitrary, lull, nibble, knead, parched and 5 more...
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