sea glass

noun

variants or less commonly sea-glass

ˈsē-ˌglas 

plural sea glasses also sea-glasses

: small pieces of glass that have been physically and chemically weathered by exposure to the sea and that typically have a frosted and often pitted appearance

Walkers can spot sea glass, shells, weathered bottles or stray fishing floats washed in from offshore.

—Mandy Applegate

Where regular gems are made by nature and then refined by humans, sea glass is man-made but then refined by nature.

—Callum Osment

Her art includes pieces crafted with pencil, watercolour, acrylic, pen and ink, and sometimes collage materials like shells and sea-glass.

—Miranda Norris

compare beach glass

Examples of sea glass in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The place is blessedly distraction-free, leaving you plenty of time to hike around, go saltwater fishing off the dock, hunt for mussels at low tide, do the backstroke in the harbor as seagulls soar overhead, and search for shells and sea glass along the beach. —Madeline Bilis, Travel + Leisure, 3 May 2026

People collect shells, coral, sea glass, driftwood, egg cases, fossils, agates, pumice. —Lauren Collins, New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2026

Handcrafted by Colombian artisans, this design reminds us of sea glass washed ashore or the remnants of some ship captain’s message in a bottle. —Audrey Lee, Architectural Digest, 20 Apr. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1958, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for sea glass

• alas
• amass
• bromegrass
• bypass
• crabgrass
• crevasse
• eelgrass
• eyeglass
• groundmass
• harass
• impasse
• jackass