vitrify

From Middle French vitrifier, from Latin vitrum (“glass”).

• IPA^(key): /ˈvɪt.ɹɪˌfaɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

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

1. (transitive) To convert into glass or a glass-like 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, 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 [1977], Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve, London: Virago Press, →ISBN:

     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.

• (convert into glassy substance): glassify

• vitrification, vitrifaction, vitrifacture, vitreous