ˈweather-glass
[Cf. Du. weerglas, Da. veirglas, Sw. väderglas, G. wetterglas.]
† 1. A kind of thermometer, used to ascertain the temperature of the air, and also to prognosticate changes in the weather. Obs.
It consisted in its simplest form of an upright tube filled with water, terminating at the top in a bulb containing rarefied air. The water sank or rose in the tube as the air in the bulb expanded or contracted.
| 1626 Bacon Sylva §27 Cold..doth manifestly Condense; As wee see in the Contracting of the Aire in the Weather-Glasse. 1634 J. B[ate] Myst. Nat. & Art 28 A Weather⁓glasse is a structure of, at the least, two glasses, sometimes of three, foure, or more, as occasion serueth, inclosing a quantity of water, and a portion of ayre proportionable, by whose condensation or rarifaction the included water is subject unto a continuall motion, either upward or downward; by which motion of the water is commonly foreshewn the state, change, and alteration of the weather. a 1643 Suckling Brennoralt ii. i, His colour..sanke down As water in a weather-glasse Prest by a warme hand. 1669 Worlidge Syst. Agric. 257 For the true discovery of the nature and temper of the Air, as to its density or rarity, we have not met with a more certain or compleat invention than the Weather-glass. Ibid. 259 The Weather-glass or Thermoscope. 1670 Dryden 1st Pt. Conq. Granada iv. ii. (1672) 36 As in some wether-glass my Love I hold; Which falls or rises with the heat or cold. 1694 Phil. Trans. XVIII. 205 A tender Weather-Glass or Thermometer. 1720 Ibid. XXXI. 117 Two Thermometers, the one the common seal'd Weather⁓glass, having no Communication with the outward Air, wherein the temper as to Heat and Cold was shewn by the swelling or shrinking of the included Spirit. |
2. A barometer.
| 1695 Lond. Gaz. No. 3103/4 A Portable Barometer, or Weather-Glass. 1710 Addison Tatler No. 220 ¶3 Toricellius, the Inventor of the common Weather Glass. 1758 Johnson Idler No. 33 ¶2 Weather rainy. Consulted my weather⁓glass. 1848 Clough Bothie ii. 17 The weather-glass, say they, is rising. 1885 New Bk. Sports 23 There is no trusting the weather-glass among the Highland hills. |
3. fig.
| 1654 Whitlock Zootomia 276, I shall onely refer you to the Polititians Weather-glasse, whereby he not onely foreseeth (but discerneth aright when fallen) the unseasonable weather of his respective Place he liveth in. 1681 D'Urfey Progr. Honesty xiv. 32 His Bone's his Weather-Glass, and his Back Is his perpetual Almanack. 1742 H. Walpole Let. to Mann 24 June, My uncle, who is my political weather-glass, and whose quicksilver rises and falls with the least variation of parliamentary weather. 1748 Richardson Clarissa (1768) VIII. 180 When the weather-glass of my pride got up again, I found I had gone too far to recede. 1864 G. A. Lawrence Maurice Dering II. 80 Besides, I'm not at all sure that he was losing heavily: his own face is a bad weather-glass. |
4. poor man's weather-glass, or shepherd's, weather-glass: a name for the scarlet pimpernel, Anagallis arvensis, from its closing its flowers before rain.
| 1827, 1872 [see shepherd n. 8 d]. 1836 J. T. Mackay Flora Hibern. i. 194 Common Pimpernel, or Poor Man's Weatherglass. |