Amber

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈam.bə/

Definitions

1. A yellowish-brown fossilized tree resin that is prized for its use in adornments and possesses a unique color that can vary from transparent to opaque
2. This substance, often found in jewelry, is a fossilized resin known for its warm yellow to brown hues and potential to encase ancient organisms
3. A hard, translucent resin originating from ancient trees and commonly used in ornamentation ; a warm color ranging from yellow to orange resembling the resin's shade

Etymology: Before it named a golden gemstone, the word pointed east. Its ultimate source is Arabic "ʕanbar", meaning ambergris, the waxy substance from whales that perfumers prized. That Arabic term came from Middle Persian, and it reached English through Old French as "ambre" or "aumbre" during the Middle English period. Because the two substances were confused, the word drifted onto fossil resin, which was a different material altogether. English already had its own words for the stone, including "glær", "sāp", and "eolhsand", but Middle English "ambre" displaced several of them. The resin's older names survive only in dictionaries. The gemstone's name also turns up in an unexpected place in modern biology. In 1965, the nucleotide sequence UAG was called the "amber" mutation, after Harris Bernstein, a California Institute of Technology graduate student who first isolated it. His surname is the German word for the resin.

Synonyms: resin, fossilized tree sap