2546: glass (material) Dec 2, 2021

Recent posts discussed how the root *ghel- led to words for many different colors [1] or that related to light and bile, but even just looking at how 'glass' has changed can reveal a great deal of variability alone. From the 13th century it was used with restricted meanings beyond that just the material, in this case meaning 'drinking glass'. In the 14th century it took on the meaning of 'mirror' as in 'looking glass', and by the 15th century it referred to the timekeeping 'hour glass'.