glassing

Pluralglassings

1. 1
   nouncountable

   An attack in which someone is stabbed or struck with a piece of broken glass or a broken bottle.

   The bar's reputation suffered after a glassing left a customer scarred for life.

   A series of glassings in the city center prompted venues to switch to plastic cups.

   Note

   A countable crime noun that sits naturally beside stabbings. A 2009 letter to The Observer lists Bridgend's Saturday-night "stabbings and glassings" in one breath. It often takes its setting as a modifier, as in a nightclub glassing, and belongs to the language of news and court reporting. The verb behind it can also mean a blow with an unbroken drinking glass, so the weapon need not be broken.

2. 2
   verb

   Present participle of glass.

   The contractor is glassing the entire south facade of the building.

   Glassing the conservatory took the team most of the summer.

   Note

   One spelling covers a surprising spread of verbs, all of them taking an object. Glassing a facade means glazing it. Glassing a surface can mean coating it with fiberglass, and glassing a ridge means scanning it through binoculars. In talk of nuclear bombardment, glassing a landscape means melting it to glass. In British colloquial use, glassing someone means striking them with a drinking glass, the sense behind the noun for such an attack.

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