n. [A. S. glæs; Engl. glass; Germ. glass; early Dan. glar; the mod. Dan. and Swed. glas seem to be borrowed from Germ.; Icel. distinguish between gler (glass) and glas (a small glass bottle); but s seems to be the original consonant, and the word is akin to Glasir, glys, glæsa, q. v.]:—the word originally meant amber, ‘succinum’ quod ipsi (viz. the Germans) glaesum vocant, Tacit. Germ. ch. 45; glass beads for ornament are of early use; quantities are found in the great deposits (in cairns and fens) of the earliest Iron Age, but only in a single instance in a deposit of the Brass Age (which ends about the beginning of our era), vide Ann. for Nord. Oldk. 1868, p. 118; and such is the sense of the word in the three places that it occurs in old heathen poems: magical Runes were written on glass, Sdm. 17: metaph., nú er grjót þat at gleri orðit, now those stones are turned into gler, of an altar ‘glassed’ with sacrificial blood, Hdl, 5; cp. also the curious reading, bresta í gleri, to be shivered, to break into shivers, Hým. 29,—the reading of Kb., ‘í tvau,’ is a gloss on the obsolete phrase:—glæs also occurs twice or thrice in A. S. poetry, but not in the oldest, as Beowulf, vide Grein. For window-panes glass is of much later date, and came into use with the building of cathedrals: a Danish cathedral with glass panes is mentioned in Knytl. S. ch. 58 (year 1085); in Icel. the first panes brought into the country were probably those presented by bishop Paul to the cathedral at Skalholt in the year 1195; the ancient halls and dwellings had no windows in the walls, but were lighted by louvres and by round openings (gluggr) in the roof, covered with the caul (of a new-born calf, called skjall or líkna-belgr) stretched on a frame or a hoop and called skjár: these are still used in Icel. farms; and Icel. distinguish between the round small caul windows (skjár or skjá-gluggar) and glass windows (gler-gluggar):—háll sem gler, slippery as glass, of ice, Nj. 144: in eccl. and later writings, Hom. 127, Sks. 424, Vm. 21, Fas. iii. 393: in the saying, sjaldan brýtr gæfu-maðr gler.

COMPDS: gleraugu, glergluggr, glerhallr, glerhálka, glerhiminn, glerkaleikr, glerker, glerlampr, glerpottr, glersteinar, glertölur, Glerá.