cullet

[prettygoodword]

cullet - n., Scraps of broken or waste glass gathered for remelting.


Etymology is obscure: per American Heritage, "probably alteration of collet, neck of glass left on the blowing iron, from French, collar, diminutive of col, neck, from Old French, from Latin collum"; per Merriam-Webster, "perhaps from French cueillette, act of gathering, from Latin collecta, from feminine of collectus, past participle of colligere." I don't have access to an OED here. I've sometimes heard it used of the barrel or other container that holds the scraps, but no dictionary seems to acknowledge this sense.

ETA: OED gives it as alteration of collet, neck.

---L.

Comments

[paulakate.livejournal.com]

OED: [A later form of collet n.1 4; the name being extended from the ‘necks’ formed in glass-blowing to all refuse and broken glass melted over again to make inferior glass.]
Broken or refuse glass with which the crucibles are replenished.
1817 C. Attwood Specif. of Patent No. 4148 Cullet, or old or broken or waste glass. 1875 Ure Dict. Arts II. 655 The pot is now ready for receiving the topping of cullet, which is broken pieces of window-glass to the amount of 3 or 4 cwts.


pk

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

So American Heritage follows OED. Thanks.

---L.

[paulakate.livejournal.com]

de nada. The OED on CD-ROM is a fine and glorious thing.

[prettygoodword.livejournal.com]

Indeed it would be.

---L.