[It.; = ‘mouth.’]
1. A circular opening in a glass-furnace, through which the melting-pots are inserted and withdrawn.
1799. G. Smith, Laboratory, I. 167. The mouth [of a glass-furnace] is called the bocca.
1832. G. Porter, Porcelain, 159. The openings … serving for the introduction of the materials and for the removal of the melted glass, are called boccas.
2. (See quot.)
1881. Pop. Sci. Monthly, XIX. 51. The active bocca or mouth of Vesuvius.
