(from Italian latte, “milk”) Term formerly used to describe filigrana. It has now been abandoned.

These terms are used inconsistently, especially in the context of contemporary glass. When used as a noun, murrina usually refers to a multicolored element embedded in an object, whereas murrine most often refers to slices of a complex cane.

The process of reheating a blank until it becomes soft and gradually flows under its own weight over or into a former mold and eventually assumes the shape of the mold. Soda-lime glass becomes soft at about 1110°F (600°C). Slumping is also known as sagging.

A type of decorative glass developed by Orrefors of Sweden in 1916. The design is carved, engraved, or etched on a parison of colored glass, which is then reheated and cased in a thick layer of transparent glass of a different color, and inflated.

The technique of forming an object by inflating a gather or gob of molten glass on the end of a blowpipe. Traditionally and in modern furnace working, the gaffer blows through the tube, slightly inflating the gob, which is then manipulated into the required form by swinging it, rolling it on a marver, or shaping it with tools or in a mold. It is then inflated to the desired size. In flameworking, one end of the glass tube is heated and closed immediately, after which the worker blows into the other end and manipulates the hot glass.

The generic name for a wide variety of techniques used to form glass in a mold.

Neon is an inert gas that, like some other gases, has the properties of high electrical conductivity and strong light-emissive power. Such gases can be introduced into evacuated glass tubes. Under these conditions, an electrical discharge causes the gas to emit light. Different gases emit different colors; for example, neon emits red, and xenon emits blue. Regardless of the gases employed, lighting of this type is known as neon lighting.

The technique of forming objects from rods and tubes of glass that, when heated in a flame, become soft and can be manipulated into the desired shape. Formerly, the source of the flame was an oil or paraffin lamp used in conjunction with foot-powered bellows; today, gas-fueled torches are used.

A drinking vessel with a bowl that rests on a stemmed foot.

The collective term for the many techniques (such as copper-wheel engraving and cutting) used to alter or decorate glass when it is cold.

Smoothing the surface of an object when it is cold by holding it against a rotating wheel fed with a fine abrasive such as pumice or cerium oxide. Glass can also be polished with hand-held tools.

The technique of removing the surface of an object with a rotating wheel fed with an abrasive, or by some other means.

Any instrument used by glassworkers to develop and shape an object. Glassworkers’ tools include the blowpipe, pontil, gathering iron, jacks, shears, clapper, pallet, block, pincers, battledore, lipper, and crimper.

Glass in which the flux is boric oxide instead of alkali. The first %%borosilicate glass%% was created by Otto Schott in 1882. It has a low coefficient of expansion and therefore withstands sudden changes of temperature.

(French, “glass paste”) A material produced by grinding glass into a fine powder, adding a binder to create a paste, and adding a fluxing medium to facilitate melting. The paste is brushed or tamped into a mold, dried, and fused by firing. After annealing, the object is removed from the mold and finished.

A surface decorated with many small, adjoining pieces of varicolored materials, such as stone or glass.

Objects made from preformed elements placed in a mold and heated until they fuse. The term “mosaic glass” is preferable to “millefiori,” except in the case of Venetian or façon de Venise glass.

A small, heavy object designed to hold down loose papers. The first glass paperweights were made in the early 1840s in Venice and France, and their manufacture spread rapidly to other parts of Europe and the United States. Glass paperweights ceased to be fashionable in the early 20th century, but the craft of making them revived in the 1950s.

The process of fusing or shaping glass (usually in or over a mold) by heating it in a kiln.

The process of cutting into the surface of an annealed glass object either by holding it against a rotating copper wheel fed with an abrasive or by scratching it, usually with a diamond.

An oven used to process a substance by burning, drying, or heating. In contemporary glassworking, kilns are used to fuse enamel and for kiln-forming processes such as slumping.

The technique whereby glass is removed from the surface of an object by grinding it with rotating wheels made of stone, wood, and cork. The first stage of the process employs a stone wheel under a continuous stream of water. Later, wheels of fine-grained stone and wood, fed with various abrasives, are used to grind and polish the surface.