Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A hard, translucent, usually brownish-yellow fossil resin, used for making jewelry and other ornamental objects.
  • noun A brownish yellow.
  • adjective Having the color of amber; brownish-yellow.
  • adjective Made of or resembling amber.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A vessel with one handle; a pail; a bucket; a pitcher.
  • noun An old English measure of 4 bushels.
  • To scent or flavor with amber or ambergris.
  • To make amber-colored.
  • To inclose in amber.
  • noun Ambergris (which see).
  • noun A mineralized pale-yellow, sometimes reddish or brownish, resin of extinct pine-trees, occurring in beds of lignite and in alluvial soils, but found in greatest abundance on the shores of the Baltic, between Königsberg and Memel, where it is thrown up by the sea.
  • noun In the English versions of the Old Testament (Ezek. i. 4, 27; viii. 2) used to translate the Hebrew word chashmal, a shining metal, rendered in the Septuagint ēlektron, and in the Vulgate electrum. See electrum.
  • noun Liquid-ambar.
  • Consisting of or resembling amber; of the color of amber.
  • Having the odor of ambergris.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Consisting of amber; made of amber.
  • adjective Resembling amber, especially in color; amber-colored.
  • transitive verb To scent or flavor with ambergris.
  • transitive verb To preserve in amber.
  • noun (Min.) A yellowish translucent resin resembling copal, found as a fossil in alluvial soils, with beds of lignite, or on the seashore in many places. It takes a fine polish, and is used for pipe mouthpieces, beads, etc., and as a basis for a fine varnish. By friction, it becomes strongly electric.
  • noun Amber color, or anything amber-colored; a clear light yellow.
  • noun obsolete Ambergris.
  • noun The balsam, liquidambar.
  • noun and old and popular name for jet.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A brownish yellow colour.
  • noun UK The intermediate light in a set of three traffic lights, the illumination of which indicates that drivers should stop short of the intersection if it is safe to do so.
  • noun biology, genetics, biochemistry The stop codon (nucleotide triplet) "UAG", or a mutant which has this stop codon at a premature place in its DNA sequence.
  • adjective Of a brownish yellow colour, like that of most amber.
  • verb transitive To perfume or flavour with ambergris.
  • verb transitive To preserve in amber.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of a medium to dark brownish yellow color
  • noun a hard yellowish to brownish translucent fossil resin; used for jewelry
  • noun a deep yellow color

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English ambre, from Old French, from Medieval Latin ambra, ambar, from Arabic ‘anbar, ambergris, amber.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French ambre, from Arabic عنبر (ʿanbar, "ambergris"), from Middle Persian 𐭠𐭭𐭡𐭫 (ambar, "ambergris"). Compare lamber, ambergris.

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Examples

Comments

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  • An old English unit of volume used for liquids and dry goods, equal to about 4 bushels or about 140 liters.

    November 6, 2007

  • amber is resin from trees usually found in countries such as Poland. Many years ago in certain countries it was a capital offence to have amber, except royalty

    May 12, 2010

  • (creat a link to the word.)

    May 12, 2010

  • Usage/historical note in comment on ambergris.

    October 9, 2017