Glass vs. Grass

Main Difference

The main difference between Glass and Grass is that the amorphous solid that exhibits a glass transition when heated towards the liquid state and Grass is a family of plants.

• Glass

  Glass is a non-crystalline, amorphous solid that is often transparent and has widespread practical, technological, and decorative usage in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optoelectronics. The most familiar, and historically the oldest, types of manufactured glass are “silicate glasses” based on the chemical compound silica (silicon dioxide, or quartz), the primary constituent of sand. The term glass, in popular usage, is often used to refer only to this type of material, which is familiar from use as window glass and in glass bottles. Of the many silica-based glasses that exist, ordinary glazing and container glass is formed from a specific type called soda-lime glass, composed of approximately 75% silicon dioxide (SiO2), sodium oxide (Na2O) from sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), calcium oxide (CaO), also called lime, and several minor additives.

  Many applications of silicate glasses derive from their optical transparency, giving rise to their primary use as window panes. Glass will transmit, reflect and refract light; these qualities can be enhanced by cutting and polishing to make optical lenses, prisms, fine glassware, and optical fibers for high speed data transmission by light. Glass can be coloured by adding metallic salts, and can also be painted and printed with vitreous enamels. These qualities have led to the extensive use of glass in the manufacture of art objects and in particular, stained glass windows. Although brittle, silicate glass is extremely durable, and many examples of glass fragments exist from early glass-making cultures. Because glass can be formed or moulded into any shape, it has been traditionally used for vessels: bowls, vases, bottles, jars and drinking glasses. In its most solid forms it has also been used for paperweights, marbles, and beads. When extruded as glass fiber and matted as glass wool in a way to trap air, it becomes a thermal insulating material, and when these glass fibers are embedded into an organic polymer plastic, they are a key structural reinforcement part of the composite material fiberglass. Some objects historically were so commonly made of silicate glass that they are simply called by the name of the material, such as drinking glasses and eyeglasses.

  Scientifically, the term “glass” is often defined in a broader sense, encompassing every solid that possesses a non-crystalline (that is, amorphous) structure at the atomic scale and that exhibits a glass transition when heated towards the liquid state. Porcelains and many polymer thermoplastics familiar from everyday use are glasses. These sorts of glasses can be made of quite different kinds of materials than silica: metallic alloys, ionic melts, aqueous solutions, molecular liquids, and polymers. For many applications, like glass bottles or eyewear, polymer glasses (acrylic glass, polycarbonate or polyethylene terephthalate) are a lighter alternative than traditional glass.

• Grass

  Poaceae or Gramineae is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants known as grasses. Poaceae includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and cultivated lawns and pasture. Grasses have stems that are hollow except at the nodes and narrow alternate leaves borne in two ranks. The lower part of each leaf encloses the stem, forming a leaf-sheath. With around 780 genera and around 12,000 species, Poaceae are the fifth-largest plant family, following the Asteraceae, Orchidaceae, Fabaceae and Rubiaceae.

  Grasslands such as savannah and prairie where grasses are dominant are estimated to constitute 40.5% of the land area of the Earth, excluding Greenland and Antarctica. Grasses are also an important part of the vegetation in many other habitats, including wetlands, forests and tundra. The Poaceae are the most economically important plant family, providing staple foods from domesticated cereal crops such as maize, wheat, rice, barley, and millet as well as forage, building materials (bamboo, thatch, straw) and fuel (ethanol).

  Though they are commonly called “grasses”, seagrasses, rushes, and sedges fall outside this family. The rushes and sedges are related to the Poaceae, being members of the order Poales, but the seagrasses are members of order Alismatales.

• Glass (noun)

  a hard, brittle substance, typically transparent or translucent, made by fusing sand with soda and lime and cooling rapidly. It is used to make windows, drinking containers, and other articles

  “the screen is made from glass”

  “a glass door”

• Glass (noun)

  a substance similar to glass which has solidified from a molten state without crystallizing

  “the black volcanic glass makes the beaches sparkle”

• Glass (noun)

  glassware

  “we sell china and glass”

• Glass (noun)

  greenhouses or cold frames considered collectively

  “lettuces grown under glass”

• Glass (noun)

  a drinking container made from glass

  “a beer glass”

• Glass (noun)

  the contents of a glass

  “have a glass of wine”

• Glass (noun)

  a lens, or an optical instrument containing a lens or lenses, in particular a monocle or a magnifying lens.

• Glass (noun)

  a mirror

  “she couldn’t wait to put the dress on and look in the glass”

• Glass (noun)

  a weather glass.

• Glass (noun)

  an hourglass

  “every hour the ship’s glass was turned”

• Glass (verb)

  cover or enclose with glass

  “the inn has a long gallery, now glassed in”

• Glass (verb)

  (especially in hunting) scan (one’s surroundings) with binoculars

  “the first day was spent glassing the rolling hills”

• Glass (verb)

  hit (someone) in the face with a beer glass

  “he glassed the landlord because he’d been chatting to Jo”

• Glass (verb)

  reflect as if in a mirror

  “the opposite slopes glassed themselves in the deep dark water”