glass

UK/ɡlɑːs/US/ɡlæs/

nounA12 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #643 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: glasses

A glass is a container you drink from. A glass of water, break a glass, wine glasses.

Glass is also the hard transparent material itself: a pane of glass, glass bottles. It is technically a supercooled liquid in some descriptions and a solid in most, and the story that old window glass is thicker at the bottom because it has flowed is a myth — it was made that way. Glasses in the plural means spectacles. Note glasshouse, glassware; and people in glass houses should not throw stones.

Definitions of glass

1nounglassA container you drink from.A1
“She filled a glass with cold water and drank it in one go.”
- Said"Can I get you a glass of water while you wait?"
- WrittenHe raised his glass, said nothing, and the whole table understood.
- UsedChill the glasses first; a cold glass keeps the drink cold longer.
- ContrastA glass, not a cup. A glass is clear and has no handle; a cup is for hot drinks. cup →
- Not thisTea does not go in a glass here. The heat comes straight through to your fingers.
Patterna glass of + noun (water, wine, milk) · raise / fill / empty a glass · wine glass
2nounhardThe hard transparent material.A2
“The whole front is glass and costs a fortune to clean.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

glass is a material or drinking vessel.

Remember it

GLASS → the whole CLASS raises one

At the end of school the whole class raises a glass of juice, and one slips and breaks: be careful, glass breaks easily.

hooks ontoclass

Where it comes from

Old English glaes comes from a Germanic root meaning to shine or glow — the same root as glare, glow and glisten. The material is named for what it does with light rather than for what it is.

Proto-Germanic
*glasą
Proto-West Germanic
*glas
Old English
glæs
Middle English
glas
English, today
glass

Built from

*ǵʰleh₁- · Proto-Indo-European — to shine, shimmer, glow

From Middle English glas, from Old English glæs, from Proto-West Germanic glas, from Proto-Germanic glasą, possibly related to Proto-Germanic glōaną (“to shine”) (compare glow), and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European - root ǵʰleh₁- (“to shine, shimmer, glow”). Cognate with West Frisian glês, Low German and German Glas, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish glas, Norwegian Bokmål glass, Icelandic gler.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen

Practise this word

glass in the wild

Together with rapid cooling, this results in a natural glass forming from the lava.
Obsidian
The question of whether some phase transition underlies the glass transition is a matter of ongoing research.
Glass transition
Water bottles are usually plastic, glass, cartons or cans.
Water bottle
The casing was built with aircraft-grade aluminum and tempered glass to allow it to stand heavy use in public environments.
MT-50 Multitouch Table
A spin-off of the original firm (which returned to its pharmaceutical glass roots) adopted the name in 2006.
Wheaton Industries

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

Definitions of glass

1nounglassA container you drink from.A1

“She filled a glass with cold water and drank it in one go.”

Said"Can I get you a glass of water while you wait?"
WrittenHe raised his glass, said nothing, and the whole table understood.
UsedChill the glasses first; a cold glass keeps the drink cold longer.
ContrastA glass, not a cup. A glass is clear and has no handle; a cup is for hot drinks. cup →
Not thisTea does not go in a glass here. The heat comes straight through to your fingers.

Patterna glass of + noun (water, wine, milk) · raise / fill / empty a glass · wine glass

2nounhardThe hard transparent material.A2

“The whole front is glass and costs a fortune to clean.”

Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.

glass is a material or drinking vessel.