plate glassn.adj.

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Glass It is from this Adulteration that those Threads and other Defects in Plate Glass arise.

1779 F. Pilon Illumination 6 Was it not as clear as plate-glass, that a prudent glazier cou'd never live in peace with a woman of her confounded extravagant turbulent spirit?

1807 T. Thomson Syst. Chem. (ed. 3) II. 508 The plate glass is poured melted upon a table covered with a sheet of copper. The plate, as cast, is about an inch thick; but it is ground down to the proper..thinness, and then polished.

1860 All Year Round 4 Aug. 397 The partition which separated my own office from our general outer office,..was of thick plate-glass.

1925 S. Lewis Arrowsmith vii. 71 She was intimidated by the luminous cases of mahogany and plate glass.

1955 A. MacLean H.M.S. Ulysses vi. 106 The ice-laden storm..had starred and abraded the plate glass until it was completely opaque.

2001 R. Kenna Glasgow Pub Compan. (ed. 2) 31/2 Six tasty ales, brewed on the premises, are on tap, and the micro-brewery can be viewed through plate glass.

1795 Gentleman's Mag. 65 ii. 961 Mr. Harman's seat..had a great number of plate-glass windows broke.

1833 N. Arnott Elements Physics (ed. 5) II. 44 In our drawing-rooms it is common to have plate-glass fire-screens, which, while they allow the light to pass, defend the face from the heat.

1855 E. C. Gaskell North & South II. xxi. 283 He has had new grates put in, and a plate-glass window in the drawing-room.

1897 R. Kipling Captains Courageous ix. 193 The secretary and typewriter sat together..by the plate-glass observation window at the rear end.

1917 E. Wharton Summer i. 10 Charity Royall had, for the first and only time, experienced railway-travel, looked into shops with plate-glass fronts.

1994 BBC Holidays Oct. 20/1 Suddenly, you're in the USA, in a city where quaint brick buildings are reflected in the megalomaniacal plate-glass towers of Corporate America.

1968 M. Beloff Plateglass Univ. i. 20 The self-confident and colourful character of the Plateglass universities reflects the spirit of the high Macmillan age.

1968 Economist 1 June 47/1 Of the non-Oxbridge successful candidates, only four came from the new generation of plate-glass universities.

1971 C. Driver Exploding Univ. i. iv. 187 Some time ago a Plateglass professor suggested that a new university's potential for innovation fades after about three years.

1973 J. H. M. Scott Dons & Students ii. 17 Though the new universities have been dubbed ‘plate-glass’..they have no monopoly of that material.

1988 D. Lodge Nice Work i. ii. 27 She has her sights fixed on higher things than the University of Suffolk, a new ‘plateglass’ university.

1968 Economist 1 June 47/1 A man from Aberystwyth got into the Foreign Service, along with two plate-glassers, one red-brick man, one Dubliner, nine from Oxford and eleven from Cambridge.

1994 Guardian 26 Sept. ii. 2/5 Oxbridge man runs the quality papers, occupying most of the major editorial positions, while the women and plate-glassers get stuck on sub-editing desks.