Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A dense translucent, white or tinted fine-grained gypsum.
- n. A variety of hard calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.
- n. A pale yellowish pink to yellowish gray.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A box, casket, or vase made of alabaster. See alabastrum.
- n. A marble-like mineral of which there are two well-known varieties, the gypseous and the calcareous. The former is a crystalline granular variety of sulphate of calcium or gypsum, CaSO4.2H2O. It is of various colors, as yellow, red, and gray, but is most esteemed when pure white. Being soft, it can be formed by the lathe or knife into small works of art, as vases, statuettes, etc. For this purpose the snow-white, fine-grained variety found near Florence in Italy is especially prized. Calcareous or Oriental alabaster (the alabastrites of the ancients) is a variety of carbonate of calcium or calcite, occurring as a stalactite or stalagmite in caverns of limestone rocks.
- Made of alabaster, or resembling it: as, “an alabaster column,” Addison, Travels in Italy.
Wiktionary
- n. A fine-grained white or lightly-tinted variety of gypsum, used ornamentally.
- n. A variety of calcite, translucent and sometimes banded.
- adj. Made of alabaster
- adj. Resembling alabaster: white, pale, translucent.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A compact variety or sulphate of lime, or gypsum, of fine texture, and usually white and translucent, but sometimes yellow, red, or gray. It is carved into vases, mantel ornaments, etc.
- n. A hard, compact variety of carbonate of lime, somewhat translucent, or of banded shades of color; stalagmite. The name is used in this sense by Pliny. It is sometimes distinguished as
oriental alabaster . - n. A box or vessel for holding odoriferous ointments, etc.; -- so called from the stone of which it was originally made.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a hard compact kind of calcite
- n. a compact fine-textured, usually white gypsum used for carving
- n. a very light white
- adj. of or resembling alabaster
Etymologies
- Middle English alabastre, from Old French, from Latin alabaster, from Greek alabastros, alabastos, possibly of Egyptian origin.
Examples
“Or rather, what we call alabaster now is not what was called alabaster in ancient times.”
“Pillars of marble and alabaster support the base, and the tabernacle, also of alabaster, is surmounted by four beautifully carved angels in adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.”
More Encouraging News from the Franciscans of the Immaculate: Their House in Lanherne, England
“A certain amount of alabaster is used to line the interior, but it is not carved or decorated in any way.”
“Milton has the word alabaster three times, twice incorrectly spelled”
“Granular or massive specimens are called alabaster, while all those which are well crystallized are called selenite.”
“The alabaster is a species of marble, distinguished for being light, and of a beautiful white colour, almost transparent.”
“The substance commonly known as alabaster is a fine-grained variety of gypsum (calcium sulphate) much used for vases and other ornamental articles.”
“Tons of travertine or stalagmite, the so-called alabaster, have been quarried from some of the deposits, while a large number of flint nodules has been dug out of the cave-earth where they fell from the disintegrating limestone.”
Archeological Investigations Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76
“My next release from Subterranean Press will be the new trade-paperback edition of Alabaster in April (by the way, I love that on a search for the word "alabaster" on Google, out of 4,880,000 hits, this book comes in at sixth place).”
“If student are excited about Twilight, they'll probably be more inclined to remember what the word "alabaster" means.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘alabaster’.
-
Uncommon Colours
azure, myrtle, periwinkle, viridian, jade, emerald, lime, chartreuse, asparagus, celadon, harlequin, olive and 147 more...
-
Ditrochaic Words with the Accent on the First S...
This is my favorite meter for single words. You could call it BUH-duh-buh-duh.
I collect them and cherish them; please add some. Phrases are also accepted if they've, you know, got it.helicopter, stratocaster, watermelon, telecaster, percolator, studebaker, flabbergasted, dramaturgy, carburator, copenhagen, pomegranate, metallurgy and 13 more...
-
Steroids
Nouns that end in "ster". The -er suffix (as in blaster) doesn't count.
hamster, filibuster, aster, master, mister, baluster, banister, barrister, monster, plaster, semester, bister and 56 more...
-
RitaJKing's list
transparency
shimmer, fantastical, sansula, rapture, melancholy, obviated, parenthetically, apoplexy, indelible, pillory, demagogues, quark and 41 more...
-
beyond pale
Words meaning or invoking the different aspects of pale.
Not just colour, but also the ideas of impermanence, illness, weakness. (Just not the two noun forms – a thin strip of metal or woo...pale, pallid, wan, light, misty, ethereal, cream, dim, white, thin, waning, colourless and 60 more...
-
Gillian Welch, revelator
Gillian Welch, acony bell, time, revelator, barroom girls, bright morning stars, yesterday's pearls, last night's span..., David Rawlings, archtop guitar, ruination, revival and 43 more...
OldPat America's cities were once described as "alabaster." Jun 10, 2009
jaymediane
Alabaster in the Bible
Occurs only in the New Testament in connection with the box of "ointment of spikenard very precious," with the contents of which a woman anointed the head of Jesus as he sat at supper in the house of Simon the leper (Matt. 26:7; Mark 14:3; Luke 7:37). These boxes were made from a stone found near Alabastron in Egypt, and from this circumstance the Greeks gave them the name of the city where they were made. The name was then given to the stone of which they were made; and finally to all perfume vessels, of whatever material they were formed. The woman "broke" the vessel; i.e., she broke off, as was usually done, the long and narrow neck so as to reach the contents. This stone resembles marble, but is softer in its texture, and hence very easily wrought into boxes. Mark says (14:5) that this box of ointment was worth more than 300 pence, i.e., denarii, each of the value of sevenpence halfpenny of our money, and therefore worth about 10 pounds. But if we take the denarius as the day''s wage of a labourer (Matt. 20:2), say two shillings of our money, then the whole would be worth about 30 pounds, so costly was Mary''s offering.
Verses
Matthew 26:7: There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.
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.
Luke 7:37: And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment... Oct 22, 2007