ground glass
- noun
- Specialized
:
vidrio esmerilado
- Being allowed to do so, he gazed intently for a minute at the moving figures on the ground glass, then suddenly withdrew his head and bawled at the top of his voice to the people, 'He has all of your shades in this box.'
- ground glass screen
Examples
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Photographers often use a ground glass screen to check the focus of their images before taking a shot.
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My mother tips the Shalimar bottle and dabs the ground glass stopper behind her ears and on her wrist pulses.
Fiction book (1991) -
Next, you need a dark cloth to allow you to see the upside-down reversed image on the ground glass and a loupe for focusing.
Academic text (1997) -
The ground glass in the camera helps to diffuse light, making it easier to see details in the frame.
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When adjusting the lens, look through the ground glass to ensure the image is sharp and clear.
How Diffuse
Surface Forms
Morphology
The term is a straightforward descriptive compound: 'ground' (i.e., glass that has been abraded or frosted) + 'glass' conveys a translucent, hazy surface. The radiological sense is a direct visual metaphor — a lung area that looks like frosted/ground glass — so a B1 learner who knows the constituents can reasonably infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Ground glass comes from making the glass surface rough by rubbing or grounding it so the surface looks cloudy. That rough finish scatters light, so the term now means 'glass that diffuses light'.