Resembling glass in appearance, transparency, smoothness, or brittleness.
From 'glass' + the suffix '-like' (meaning resembling or similar to). This compound structure became standardized in English by the 1600s as a way to create similes without using 'as' or 'than.'
Describing ice as 'glasslike' is poetic, but it also reveals something about perception—smooth ice is actually more dangerous than rough ice because our brains struggle to judge traction on glassy surfaces, a phenomenon called 'black ice.'
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