Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Same as paste, 3.
  • noun The refuse of silk left in making up skeins.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Chem.) A brilliant glass, used in the manufacture of artificial paste gems, which consists essentially of a complex borosilicate of lead and potassium. Cf. glass.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A brilliant glass, used in the manufacture of artificial paste gemstones, consisting essentially of a complex borosilicate of lead and potassium.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[German Strass or French stras, both after Joseph Strasser, 18th-century German jeweler.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

So called from its inventor, Georg Friedrich Strass.

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Examples

Comments

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  • The Etymologies section provides information from The American Heritage Dictionary crediting the invention of facsimile gems to Joseph Strasser in Vienna in 1748. This theory is also embraced by the Encyclopdia Brittanica. The same Etymologies section also reports the Wiktionary claim that the invention was made by Georg Friedrich Strass (alt., Georges Frédéric Strass) in Alsace before 1730. This is supported by Wikipedia. Other sources simply report the controversy.

    The Alsatian (French) attribution has the leverage of precedence, seems thoroughly documented and does not require distortion of the proper name to produce the common noun. It gets my vote.

    December 2, 2014

  • Mere gemstones are tacky and crass.
    We Rhinestones are true upper class.
    Diamonds are coal
    Dug from a hole
    But we are descendants of Strass.

    December 2, 2014

  • Next time someone cuts in front of me I shall say: "I deign to thwart thy leverage of precedence!"

    December 2, 2014

  • Brilliant.

    December 2, 2014

  • Thank you kindly ruzuzu, and, bilby, good luck with the imprecation but in such events it is always better to be either bigger or faster than the offender.

    December 2, 2014