alabaster

adj

Etymology: From Middle English alabastre, from Old French alabastre, from Latin alabaster (“box for perfumes or unguents”), from Ancient Greek ἀλάβαστρος (alábastros), from earlier ἀλάβαστος (alábastos, “vase without handles for storing perfumes”). This may further derive from Egyptian ꜥj-r-bꜣstjt (“vessel of the Egyptian goddess Bast”). The Latin suffix -aster is unrelated, but may have influenced the spelling of the borrowing from Ancient Greek (whence a direct loan could have been rendered as *alabastrus).

1. Made of alabaster.

   “The crown is stored in an alabaster box with an onyx handle and a gold lock.”

   “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.”

2. Resembling alabaster; white, pale, smooth, translucent.

   “An ominous alabaster fog settled in the valley.”

   “With more than admiration he admir’d Her azure veins, her alabaster skin, Her coral lips, her snow-white dimpled chin.”

name

1. A city in Shelby County, Alabama, United States.

noun

Etymology: From Middle English alabastre, from Old French alabastre, from Latin alabaster (“box for perfumes or unguents”), from Ancient Greek ἀλάβαστρος (alábastros), from earlier ἀλάβαστος (alábastos, “vase without handles for storing perfumes”). This may further derive from Egyptian ꜥj-r-bꜣstjt (“vessel of the Egyptian goddess Bast”). The Latin suffix -aster is unrelated, but may have influenced the spelling of the borrowing from Ancient Greek (whence a direct loan could have been rendered as *alabastrus).

1. A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.

   “Why ſhould a man whoſe bloud is warme within, Sit like his Grandſire, cut in Alabaſter?”

   “Nor was the flame dissevered from its ribbon But like a radiant fillet ran along So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.”

2. A variety of calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.
3. A sculpture executed in alabaster.

   “Beautiful oviform vases and covers, jars and covers with flowers and foliage, Italian alabasters, copies of the antique, were ranged side by side with Chinese ginger jars and common preserve bottles of birds'eggs[…]”

   “His alabasters are certainly very estimable; but those to whom we owe them were not skilled virtuosi, and if they acquitted themselves of their task honourably, they only produced ordinary work.”

4. An off-white color, like that of alabaster.