Make and condition

Il vetro smerigliato lascia passare la luce ma non lo sguardo, and the pane the two languages are looking at is the same pane, named after two different things. English saw winter in it: frosted glass has the surface a cold night leaves on a window. Italian looked into the workshop instead. Smerigliato is the participle of smerigliare, to abrade with lo smeriglio — emery, the hard grey mineral glued to paper and to cloth and rubbed over a surface until it scatters the light. Nothing here is cold; something has simply been ground. And the mineral is a word an English reader already owns: « emery » came in through French from that very Italian smeriglio, which goes back to Greek smyris, the polishing powder of the ancient world, so an « emery board » and il vetro smerigliato are cousins. Two things follow. Smerigliato is said of metal and stone as readily as of glass, wherever a surface has been taken down to a matt finish; and because it names a tool rather than the weather, « frosted » will only carry it back as far as the window.