Forum: ell.stackexchange.com
Tags: <word-usage>
Title: Usage of "eyeglasses" and "glasses"
Question: I heard in some movies "I lost my glasses" (eyeglasses), but if I insert this word into search, this return some jars, bottles.   Is it wrong?  In a conversation I must use "eyeglasses", or "glasses" is enough?There is a difference between American and British English?  "I want to buy glasses."  or  "I want to buy eyeglasses."

Answers:
sents: text: I'm an American speaker, but I'm not aware of any difference in American and British usage here.
text: (See these Google ngrams for "glasses" vs. "eyeglasses": American , British .)
text: Generally, "eyeglasses" is uncommon (according to the above ngram links, and my personal experience) but will be understood perfectly.
text: I would expect to see "eyeglasses" used when you need to differentiate between an ambiguous use of "glasses" (which can also mean "drinking cups, made of glass"): "
text: Have you seen my glasses?
text: "
text: "
text: Yes, I just filled them up with water."
text: (This person assumes "glasses" here means "cups") "
text: No, I mean my eyeglasses !"
text: In fact, there is an old joke:
text: My grandmother is 90 years old, and she doesn't need glasses!
text: She drinks right from the bottle.
text: The first sentence suggests "glasses" means "eyeglasses" (since eyesight degrades with age) and the second sentence reveals that "glasses" actually means "drinking glasses" (since she drinks from the bottle instead of pouring her drink into a glass).
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/1654/apsillers
score: 23
sents: text: The word "glasses" has several meanings.
text: Among them are both eyeglasses and drinking glasses .
text: From the Merriam-Webster dictionary : 2
text: a : something made of glass: as : tumbler ; also : glassware 2 c plural :
text: a device used to correct defects of vision or to protect the eyes that consists typically of a pair of glass or plastic lenses and the frame by which they are held in place — called also eyeglasses , spectacles Usually, the correct meaning is clear from the context.
text: I can't read these tiny letters.
text: Let me get my glasses.
text: We assume the speaker means eyeglasses, because you don't use drinking glasses to read.
text: Would you like some water?
text: There are glasses in the kitchen.
text: We assume the speaker means drinking glasses, because you don't use eyeglasses to drink.
text: Sometimes the meaning is unclear from the context, and then we may have to ask for details:
text: I have to go buy new glasses today.
text: Do you mean for reading or for drinking?
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/15971/stangdon
score: 21
sents: text: Of course eyeglasses is unambiguous as compared to glasses as other answers say, but I don't think it is that common when ambiguity becomes an issue.
text: I think the main difference is that eyeglasses is somewhat archaic/formal and glasses is the usual term today.
text: Words tend to be trimmed over time.
text: Other examples of this kind are the archaic motorcar versus the modern car or aeroplane/airplane versus plane ; here too, the former ones in the pairs are unambiguous, but they do not need to be used to for disambiguation.
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/16144/sawa
score: 6
sents: text: In the UK at least, if you want to avoid ambiguity, you would say " spectacles ", or, more likely in speech but very unlikely in formal writing, the slangy " specs ".
text: In order of formality awkwardness to a UK speaker, most-uncomfortable-first, I'd put them roughly: Pince-nez Eyeglasses Monocle Spectacles Glasses Specs apsiller's suggestion of viewing n-grams
text: is valuable here, since it shows the relative frequency of the words between US and UK, but in the UK at least, it feels to me like "specs" is under-represented because it's slang, and they're analyzing books, not speech.
text: But it could be that it's only a regional slang:
text: American , British
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/15673/Dewi Morgan
score: 3
sents: text: It is really about context: Put on your glasses.
text: You would not think about putting on drinking glasses , but eyeglasses , here.
text: I can't find my glasses.
text: Usually a person will say the instead of my , when referring to drinking glasses, but this still could depend on what the person was last doing.
text: Were they searching for something to pour themselves a drink into?
text: Did they last say they were thirsty?
text: Were they looking for drinking glasses that are special and specifically owned by them?
text: If no to those questions, they probably mean eyeglasses , and most of the time, that is what an English-speaker is referring to.
text: That is why we will probably say more often: Where are the cups? instead, and most of the time the person says glasses , especially if they wear them, they mean eyeglasses .
answer_details: author: ell.stackexchange.com/users/14168/vapcguy
score: 2

Summary of the answers:
This deepnds on the context.  In the UK, to avoid ambiguity, you could say "spectacles" or "specs". There does not appear to be  any difference in American and British usage in this case.
In the UK, spectacles/specs can avoid ambiguity. Context is everything.