What is "glassing"

Glass \Glass\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Glassed; p. pr. & vb. n. Glassing.]

1. To reflect, as in a mirror; to mirror; -- used reflexively.

   Happy to glass themselves in such a mirror.
   --Motley.

   Where the Almighty's form glasses itself in tempests.
   --Byron.

2. To case in glass. [R.]
   --Shak.

3. To cover or furnish with glass; to glaze.
   --Boyle.

4. To smooth or polish anything, as leater, by rubbing it with a glass burnisher.

n. An act of glassing (stabbing with broken glass). vb. (present participle of glass English)

Glassing is a physical attack using a glass as a weapon. Glassing can occur at bars or pubs where alcohol is served, and a drinking glass or bottle is available as a weapon. The most common method of glassing involves the attacker smashing an intact glass in the face of the victim. However the glass may be smashed before the attack, and then gripped by the remaining base of the glass or neck of the bottle with the broken shards protruding outwards. Glassing is easily prevented by using containers made from plastic or tempered glass instead, but they suffer from unpleasant feel and environmental consequences (for plastic) and higher expense (for tempered glass). That is slowly being adopted in areas with a high frequency of glassing, such as the United Kingdom and Australia. In New Zealand, a similar phenomenon is referred to as "bottling".

Common injuries resulting from glassings are heavy blood loss, permanent scarring, disfigurement and loss of sight through eye injury. In the United Kingdom, there are more than 87,000 glassing attacks per year, resulting in over 5,000 injuries. Glassing is a relatively small portion of all alcohol-related violence, constituting 9% of injuries from alcohol-related violence in New South Wales, from 1999 to 2011, for instance.