Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A water-soluble, yellowish-brown pigment.
- noun A grayish to yellowish brown.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In painting, a brown pigment extracted from the soot of wood.
- Of the color of bister; blackish-brown.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Paint.) A dark brown pigment extracted from the soot of wood.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Alternative spelling of
bistre .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a water-soluble brownish-yellow pigment made by boiling wood soot
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
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Examples
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( "bister") and Cogenhoe ( "cook-no"), I am very tolerant of eccentric local pronunciations.
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Joanna could see the lines of sleeplessness on his face beneath a thick coating of rice powder and rouge; the dark rings of bister and fatigue made the queer eyes even paler.
The Silent Tower Hambly, Barbara 1986
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Those great eyes, smudged in with bister — aha, pools to drown love in!
The Persian Boy Renault, Mary 1972
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Well, then, observe me; note the bister about my eyes, the swollen lips, the shaking hand.
The Grey Cloak Harold MacGrath 1901
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She looked white and spent; there were bister circles round her eyes.
The Lock and Key Library Classic Mystery and Detective Stories: Modern English Egerton Castle 1889
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She had remarked that Francois 'forehead was stained or dyed of a bister color, his eyes were bloodshot and encircled with blue lines, his lips marked with furrows, like the impression which burning sulphur leaves on living flesh.
The Forty-Five Guardsmen Alexandre Dumas p��re 1836
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Kraften, de goda gudarnas gåva, bister som bärsärk biter i sköld.
Fritiofs Saga Esaias Tegn��r 1814
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This college park atlanta that you may transitively splitter that it is not ok to bister in ionised you babel to letup in.
Rational Review 2009
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* 'I give and bequeath to my bister Botty the sum of 90/. at my dejith, iind Forty more at the birth of her tirst child.
Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Biographical Memoirs of William Bowyer ... John Nichols, Samuel Bentley 1812
azd commented on the word bister
or bistre
February 23, 2007
knitandpurl commented on the word bister
"The bard's voice slows down and, after the unfathomable and contradictory flow of words, grows vindictive, blaming all the opposing currents that crisscross the hall, sound like light filtering through in equal measure, music of the heavens where each beam by its sound fools the ear or lulls it into sleep: various shafts of light play upon the exalted heads, upon the symbols of each guild in bright, primary colors, a dominant green, deep as inexpressible blue, a quiver running through the branches of a century-old cedar; red, of neither fire nor blood, the deep shade of habit, restful to the eye; white encircling waves, desert effluvia; black, to obscure the names on tombs by night at the unheralded hour of sanctification that weight upon shoulders, burnūs of lemony wool with a fringe curiously embroidered with bister bees, with glitter-tipped emeralds."
Talismano by Abdelwaheb Meddeb, translated by Jane Kuntz, p 126 of the Dalkey Archive Press paperback
September 25, 2011
qms commented on the word bister
It looks like the pigment is spelled with the French "-re" ending and, I am reliably informed, pronounced au francais by artists of the traditional bent; that is, to roughly rhyme with "Easter." At least this is true in the U.S. The Brits have a history of brutal naturalization of their imports so the word may have lost its panache crossing the channel. It is curious that with the anglicized "-er" ending all the usage examples describe an unhealthy condition of the skin about the eyes. Apparently bister is not a shade that flatters.
November 18, 2014
qms commented on the word bister
Long ago you'd not have missed her.
She stood out with diamond glister,
But toil and tears
Through long cruel years
Have dulled her to a common bister.
November 18, 2014