Definify.com

Webster 1913 Edition


Vitrify

Vit′ri-fy

,
Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Vitrified
;
p. pr. & vb. n.
Vitrifying
.]
[F.
vitrifier
; L.
vitrum
glass +
-ficare
to make. See
Vitreous
,
-fy
.]
To convert into, or cause to resemble, glass or a glassy substance, by heat and fusion.

Vit′ri-fy

,
Verb.
T.
To become glass; to be converted into glass.
Chymists make vessels of animal substances, calcined, which will not
vitrify
in the fire.
Arbuthnot.

Webster 1828 Edition


Vitrify

VIT'RIFY

,
Verb.
T.
[L. vitrum, glass, and facio, to make.]
To convert into glass by fusion or the action of heat; as, to vitrify sand and alkaline salts.

VIT'RIFY

,
Verb.
I.
To become glass; to be converted into glass.
Chimists make vessels of animal substances calcined, which will not vitrify in the fire.

Definition 2024


vitrify

vitrify

English

Verb

vitrify (third-person singular simple present vitrifies, present participle vitrifying, simple past and past participle vitrified)

  1. (transitive) To convert into, or cause to resemble, glass or a glassy substance, by heat and fusion.
  2. (intransitive) To be converted into glass, especially through heat.
    • 1976, Dorothy Menzel, Pottery Style and Society in Ancient Peru: Art as a Mirror of History in the Ica Valley, 1350–1570, Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, ISBN 978-0-520-02970-5, page 30:
      A large percentage of all Late Horizon fragments at this site was overfired, to the point where many were vitrified, black to dark brown, and misshapen, some with blistered surfaces.
    • 1982, Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve, London: Virago Press, ISBN 978-0-86068-341-4:
      Her work was endless, she carried tubs and cauldrons and pails of heat-blasted sand, sand blasted into liquid glass, up the ladder that had vitrified where her bucket splashed, and tipped the liquid glass into the swimming pool, where, at the touch of the water, it turned into her huge, solid tears.

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