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vitreous

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, resembling, or having the nature of glass; glassy.
  • adjective Obtained or made from glass.
  • adjective Of or relating to the vitreous humor.
  • noun The vitreous humor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • 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.
  • noun The vitreous body of the eye.

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

  • adjective Consisting of, or resembling, glass; glassy.
  • adjective Of or pertaining to glass; derived from glass.
  • adjective (Anat.) the vitreous humor. See the Note under Eye.
  • adjective (Elec.) the kind of electricity excited by rubbing glass with certain substances, as silk; positive electricity; -- opposed to resinous, or negative, electricity.
  • adjective (Anat.) See the Note under Eye.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) any one of numerous species of siliceous sponges having, often fibrous, glassy spicules which are normally six-rayed; a hexactinellid sponge. See Venus's basket, under Venus.

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

  • adjective Of, or resembling glass; glassy
  • adjective Of, or relating to the vitreous humor of the eye
  • adjective of ceramics having a shiny nonporous surface
  • adjective chemistry Of a semi-crystalline substance where the atoms exhibit short-range order, but without the long-range order of a crystal
  • adjective physics, dated positive (of electric charge)
  • noun by elision The vitreous humor.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or relating to or constituting the vitreous humor of the eye
  • adjective (of ceramics) having the surface made shiny and nonporous by fusing a vitreous solution to it
  • adjective relating to or resembling or derived from or containing glass

Etymologies

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

[From Latin vitreus, from vitrum, glass.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin vitreus ("glassy, transparent"), from vitrum ("glass").

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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 1904

  • 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 1904

  • 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.

    The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe 2006

  • 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.

    The Creation of Color in Eighteenth-Century Europe 2006

  • 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 1904

  • 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.

    Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland 1881

  • 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 Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • 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 Erasmus Darwin 1766

  • 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.

    WalesOnline - Home 2010

  • When very rapidly cooled to liquid nitrogen temperatures or below, water in the sample solidifies without crystallizing; forming an amorphous solid known as vitreous ice and avoiding the damage caused by crystallization, or the artifacts associated with a crystalline 'support'.

    unknown title 2009

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