Definitions

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

  • adjective Tending to turn into glass.
  • adjective Capable of being turned into glass.
  • adjective Resembling glass; vitreous.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Turning into glass; tending to become glass.

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

  • adjective Capable of being formed into glass; tending to become glass.

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

  • adjective That can become glassy.
  • adjective Characteristic of glass; vitreous.

Etymologies

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

[Latin vitrum, glass + –escent.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

c 1850 vitri- + -escent

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Examples

  • This idea of the production of nodules of flint in chalk-beds is countenanced from the iron which generally appears as these flints become decomposed by the air; which by uniting with the iron in their composition reduces it from a vitrescent state to that of calx, and thus renders it visible.

    The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation Erasmus Darwin 1766

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