smalt

American  

[smawlt] / smɔlt /

noun

1. a coloring agent made of blue glass produced by fusing silica, potassium carbonate, and cobalt oxide, used in powdered form to add color to vitreous materials.

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smalt British  

/ smɔːlt /

noun

1. a type of silica glass coloured deep blue with cobalt oxide

2. a pigment made by crushing this glass, used in colouring enamels

3. the blue colour of this pigment

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Etymology

Origin of smalt

1550–60; < Middle French < Italian smalto smalto

Example Sentences

“As for me, I will grab even this smalt chance to get a decent man in the palace,” said Auntie.

From "Taste of Salt: A Story of Modern Haiti" by Frances Temple

Starch is used along with smalt, or stone-blue, to stiffen and clear linen.

From The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, Adapted to the Use of Private Families by Eaton, Mary, fl. 1823-1849

The chief use of cobalt is for making smalt; but the powder and the blue-stone used by laundresses is a preparation made by the Dutch of a coarse kind of smalt.

From Heads of Lectures on a Course of Experimental Philosophy: Particularly Including Chemistry by Priestley, Joseph

Zaffre is the roasted mineral ground with sand, while smalt, a term used more frequently, is the fused mixture with sand.

From De Re Metallica, Translated from the First Latin Edition of 1556 by Agricola, Georgius

The grittiness to which we have referred is one of the defects of smalt, which cannot, consistently with preserving its colour be entirely freed from that drawback—an objection which pertains to vitreous pigments in general.

From Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists by Salter, Thomas