alabaster
pronunciation
How to pronounce alabaster in British English:
UK [ˈæləbɑ:stə(r)]
How to pronounce alabaster in American English:
US [ˈæləbæstə(r)]
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- Noun:
- a compact fine-textured usually white gypsum used for carving
- a hard compact kind of calcite
- a very light white
Word Origin
- alabaster
- alabaster: [14] Chaucer was the first English author to use the word alabaster: in the Knight’s Tale (1386) he writes of ‘alabaster white and red coral’. It comes, via Old French and Latin, from Greek alábast(r)os, which may be of Egyptian origin. Scottish English used the variant from alabast until the 16th century (indeed, this may predate alabaster by a few years); and from the 16th to the 17th century the word was usually spelled alablaster, apparently owing to confusion with arblaster ‘crossbowman’.The use of alabaster for making marbles (of the sort used in children’s games) gave rise to the abbreviation alley, ally ‘marble’ in the early 18th century.
- alabaster (n.)
- translucent whitish kind of gypsum used for vases, ornaments, and busts, late 14c., from Old French alabastre (12c., Modern French albâtre), from Latin alabaster "colored rock used to make boxes and vessels for unguents," from Greek alabastros (earlier albatos) "vase for perfumes," perhaps from Egyptian 'a-labaste "vessel of the goddess Bast." Used figuratively for whiteness and smoothness from 1570s. "The spelling in 16-17th c. is almost always alablaster ..." [OED].
Example
- 1. The walls were of white alabaster , set here and there with blue and green tiles .
- 2. Lighting marble material is mainly produced in spain , alabaster .
- 3. A woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment , and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table .
- 4. This building is still occupied by the descendants of giuseppe viti ( 1816-60 ) , a merchant who travelled the world selling volterra 's most famous commodity alabaster .
- 5. Ecaussine and other calcareous monumental or building stone ; alabaster , crude or trimmed .