glass

• n. 玻璃；玻璃製品；鏡子
• vt. 反映；給某物加玻璃
• vi. 成玻璃狀
• n. (Glass)人名；(英、法、德、意)格拉斯

來自PIE*ghel, 照耀，發光，詞源同gold, glitter.

glass

glass: [OE] The making of glass goes back to ancient Egyptian times, and so most of the words for it in the various Indo-European languages are of considerable antiquity. In those days, it was far easier to make coloured glass than the familiar clear glass of today. In particular, Roman glass was standardly bluish-green, and many words for ‘glass’ originated in colour terms signifying ‘blue’ or ‘green’.

In the case of glass, its distant ancestor was Indo-European *gel- or *ghel-, which produced a host of colour adjectives ranging in application from ‘grey’ through ‘blue’ and ‘green’ to ‘yellow’. Among its descendants was West Germanic *glasam, which gave German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish glas and English glass. A secondary semantic development of the word’s base, glass being a shiny substance, was ‘shine, gleam’; this probably lies behind English glare [13], whose primary sense is ‘shine dazzlingly’ (the change of s to r is a well-known phonetic phenomenon, termed ‘rhoticization’).

Irish gloine ‘glass’ also comes from Indo-European *g(h)el-, and French verre and Italian vetro ‘glass’ go back to Latin vitrum ‘glass’ (source of English vitreous), which also meant ‘woad’, a plant which gives a blue dye. The use of the plural glasses for ‘spectacles’ dates from the mid-17th century. The verb glaze [14] is an English derivative of glass.
=> glaze

glass (n.)

Old English glæs "glass; a glass vessel," from Proto-Germanic *glasam "glass" (cognates: Old Saxon glas, Middle Dutch and Dutch glas, German Glas, Old Norse gler "glass, looking glass," Danish glar), from PIE *ghel- (2) "to shine," with derivatives referring to bright materials and gold (cognates: Latin glaber "smooth, bald," Old Church Slavonic gladuku, Lithuanian glodus "smooth"). The PIE root also is the ancestor of widespread words for gray, blue, green, and yellow, such as Old English glær "amber," Latin glaesum "amber" (which might be from Germanic), Old Irish glass "green, blue, gray," Welsh glas "blue."

Restricted sense of "drinking glass" is from early 13c. and now excludes other glass vessels. Meaning "a glass mirror" is from 14c. Meaning "glass filled with running sand to measure time" is from 1550s; meaning "observing instrument" is from 1610s.

glass (v.)

late 14c., "to fit with glass;" 1570s, "to cover with glass," from glass (n.). Related: Glassed; glassing.

glass (adj.)

Old English glæs, from glass (v.). Middle English also had an adjective glazen, from Old English glæsen. The glass snake (1736, actually a limbless lizard) is so called for the fragility of its tail. The glass slipper in "Cinderella" perhaps is an error by Charles Perrault, translating in 1697, mistaking Old French voir "ermine, fur" for verre "glass." In other versions of the tale it is a fur slipper. The proverb about people in glass houses throwing stones is attested by 1779, but earlier forms go back to 17c.:

Who hath glass-windows of his own must take heed how he throws stones at his house. ... He that hath a body made of glass must not throw stones at another. [John Ray, "Handbook of Proverbs," 1670]

Glass-house is from late 14c. as "glass factory," 1838 as "greenhouse."

1. The theatre is a futuristic steel and glass structure.

這家劇院是鋼筋和玻璃結構的未來派建築。

來自柯林斯例句

2. He asked for a glass of port after dinner.

晚飯後，他要了一杯波爾圖葡萄酒。

來自柯林斯例句

3. Visitors see the painting from behind a plate glass window.

參觀者隔著平板玻璃櫥窗欣賞那幅畫。

來自柯林斯例句

4. I poured a little more bourbon into my glass.

我又往酒杯裏倒了點兒波旁威士忌。

來自柯林斯例句

5. He stared at the rain spattering on the glass.

他凝視著雨點濺落在玻璃上。

來自柯林斯例句