alabaster
Pronunciation Noun
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004
Pronunciation Noun
alabaster (uncountable)
- A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.
- c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice ↗, Act I, Scene I, lines 89-90
- Why should a man, whose blood is warm within,
- Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
- 1867 Dante Alghieri, The Divine Comedy, Paradiso, [http://books.google.com/books?id=f-i1fbaWdosC&dq=henry+wadsworth+longfellow+divine+comedy&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=ymKK8fmMU1&sig=WMzEUhDH3QodDN_3Z7tQY40VNSQ&hl=en&ei=GMcrSrysFJiuNY3bxOoJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#PPA539,M1 Canto XV, lines 22-23] (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
- Nor was the flame dissevered from its ribbon
- But like a radiant fillet ran along
- So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.
- 1915, The New York Times, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20150914234410/http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9900E2DC153AE633A25756C1A9659C946496D6CF Egyptian Antiquities for Metropolitan]" (pdf), 15 May
- One of the striking relics found at the tomb, was a Canopic portrait head of Queen Tii, made entirely of alabaster except the eyes and eyebrows, which were inlaid lapis lazuli and osidian.
- c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice ↗, Act I, Scene I, lines 89-90
- (historical) A variety of calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.
- An off-white colour, like that of alabaster.
- French: albâtre
- German: Alabaster
- Italian: alabastro
- Portuguese: alabastro
- Russian: алеба́стр
- Spanish: alabastro
alabaster (not comparable)
- Made of alabaster
- The crown is stored in an alabaster box with an onyx handle and a gold lock.
- 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Mark 14:3
- And being in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.
- Resembling alabaster: white, pale, translucent.
- An ominous alabaster fog settled in the valley.
- 1594, William Shakespeare, "The Rape of Lucrece ↗", lines 418-420
- With more than admiration he admir’d
- Her azure veins, her alabaster skin,
- Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.
- before 1887, Emily Dickinson, "Safe in Their Alabaster Chambers ↗"
- Safe in their alabaster chambers
- Untouched by morning, untouched by noon
- Sleep the meek members of the resurrection,
- Rafters of satin, and roof of stone.
- 1895, Katherine Lee Bates, "America the Beautiful"
- Thy alabaster cities gleam
- Undimmed by human tears!
- German: alabastern
- Russian: алеба́стровый
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004