> as lemmas

1662 C. Merrett tr. A. Neri Art of Glass 243 The Leer (made by Agricola, the third furnace, to anneal and cool the vessels..) comprehends two parts, the tower and leer.

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. at Furnace The Leer is an Avenue five or six Yards long, continued to the Tower.

1797 P. Wakefield Mental Improv. (1801) I. 143 The lear or third furnace.

1797 Encycl. Brit. VII. 768/2 The third oven or leer.

1832 G. R. Porter Treat. Manuf. Porcelain & Glass 158 The annealing oven, or lier, is a long low rectangular chamber..furnished with numerous shallow iron trays... These trays are called lier pans, or fraiches.

1839 A. Ure Dict. Arts 579 The cooling or annealing arch, or leer, is often built independent of the glass-house furnace... The leer pans or trays of sheet iron.

1890 W. J. Gordon Foundry 140 The tunnel is the ‘lear’, and the process is known as lear-annealing.

1908 W. Rosenhain Glass Manuf. x. 165 The split cylinders are taken to a special kiln, generally known as a ‘lear’, or ‘lehr’, where they are..raised to a dull red-heat.

1918 P. Marson Glass x. 72 These tunnels, or lehrs, are about 40 ft. long.

1937 Nature 18 Dec. 1072/1 There has been a corresponding improvement..in lehrs for annealing the finished product.

1943 Amer. Speech 18 309/1 Among the latter were boys who carried hot glassware from the molds to the leer and toward the end of a shift they began a chant, ‘Ten more trips to the layer O,’ ‘Nine more trips to the layer O,’ and so on... They said ‘layer’ distinctly in two syllables.

1949 Jrnl. Soc. Glass Technol. 33 287 The term ‘lehr’ to denote an apparatus or plant for the continuous annealing of glass first appeared in factory usage in the U.S.A. between 1890 and 1900. The word arose most probably by corruption of the original form ‘leer’, but whether by accident or design is obscure.

1958 Times 22 Dec. 1/4 (advt.) Practical experience of design and construction of glass furnace lehrs also essential.

1965 E. Tunis Colonial Craftsmen vi. 139/1 A boy carried the new bottle to the leer where he snapped the punty off its bottom.

1971 Atom May 118/1 A ribbon of glass up to 11 feet wide leaves the float tank and enters the annealing lehr at temperatures in the region of 600°C.