Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A brownish or orange resin obtained from several trees of the genus Garcinia of south-central Asia and yielding a golden-yellow pigment.
- n. A strong reddish yellow.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A gum resin, the inspissated juice of various species of the guttiferous genus Garcinia. The gamboge of commerce is mainly derived from
G. Hanburyi , a handsome laurel-like tree of Siam, Cambodia, and Cochin China. (See cut underGarcinia .) It is of a rich brownish-orange color, becoming brilliant yellow when powdered, forming a yellow emulsion with water, and having a disagreeable acrid taste. It is a drastic purgative, but is seldom used in medicine except in combination. It is mostly used as a pigment in water-color painting, producing transparent yellows, verging on brown in deep masses. It is quite durable as a water-color, and fairly so in oil. Ceylon gamboge is obtained fromG. Morella . False gamboge is a similar but inferior product of G. Xanthochymus. The so-called American gamboge is the juice of Vismia Guianensis and other species of South America. In doses of a dram or even less gamboge has produced death.
Wiktionary
- n. One of several species of trees of genus Garcinia found in South and Southeastern Asia.
- n. The resin of the gamboge tree.
- n. A deep yellow colour.
- adj. Of a deep yellow colour.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. A concrete juice, or gum resin, produced by several species of trees in Siam, Ceylon, and Malabar. It is brought in masses, or cylindrical rolls, from
Cambodia , or Cambogia, -- whence its name. The best kind is of a dense, compact texture, and of a beatiful reddish yellow. Taken internally, it is a strong and harsh cathartic and emetic.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a gum resin used as a yellow pigment and a purgative
- n. a strong yellow color
Etymologies
- New Latin cambugium, gambogium, after Cambodia . (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Neither vermilion nor gamboge is reliably permanent. 16 The practical value of the triangles would be limited if the materials used to construct it were incompatible or otherwise unstable. reference Finally, although it is unlikely that this was deliberate, Mayer's use of nonperfect colors in mixtures has the effect of emphasizing his point that nearly any coloring material could be adapted to his techniques of color composition and identification. reference”
“-- A fatty matter known as gamboge butter is procured from the seeds of this tree in Mysore.”
Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture
“The gamboge is the juice of the tree obtained by incisions in the bark.”
“In opacity it never equals white lead, and might perhaps serve advantageously as a glaze over that pigment, either alone or compounded with other colours; as well as act as a medium of interposition between white lead and those colours which are injured by it, such as gamboge, crimson lake, &c.”
Field's Chromatography or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists
“I found it next to "gamboge," and I can now tell you all about it.”
“The fruit and the trunk of both species, when cut, exude a gum-resin very much like gamboge which is obtained from the _G. morella_ or _G. pedicellata_, Desr.”
“A heavy piece of gamboge-colored iron, it was the size of a large cabbage but flat, less than an inch thick.”
“The green of verdigris was not perfectly imitated by combining indigo with yellow berries, or Prussian blue with gamboge.”
“On the other hand, if you want to lean on the taffrail of your ketch and regard the magnificent melancholy sunset of Sirius from the Draschade Ocean, with the rose, cerise and gamboge light playing across the waters, while sipping a Rum Toddy, any world of his would be just the place to do it.”
Reader Challenge #5B - The Coolest Science Fiction Setting (TV/Film)
“In contrast the malachite, a medium or jade green, is the lighter of the two greens used here, and the darker green is a combination of Prussian blue and gamboge.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gamboge’.
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Uncommon Colours
azure, myrtle, periwinkle, viridian, jade, emerald, lime, chartreuse, asparagus, celadon, harlequin, olive and 147 more...
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Archaic Colours
Words for colours that have fallen out of use.
aeneous, croceate, cretaceous, cramoisy, corbeau, coquelicot, coccineous, claret, cinerious, chrysochlorous, chlorochrous, cesious and 128 more...
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Oranges
amber, apricot, carrot, brown, burnt, gamboge, peach, pumpkin, safety, tangerine, tawny, tenne and 2 more...
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Yellows
sunflower, sunshine, amber, apricot, corn, cream, goldenrod, gold, flax, gamboge, lemon, mustard and 2 more...
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Arcades Ambo
arcades ambo, bamboo, ambo, amboyna, bambino, Amboise, framboise, dithurambos, Rambo, flamboyant, gamboge, mambo and 33 more...
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Whence
Definitions with a whence in them.
girasol, spider, Good King Whenceslas, Æ, whence, narwhal, lithophyse, henbane, gamboge, cirripedia, thermifugine, zietrisikite and 42 more...
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Verecund, flivver, etc
Just some words I happen to enjoy. Some thread-worn, some not.
yegg, yob, verecund, amatory, fermata, threepenny, gruntled, flivver, gamboge, decolletage, ordure, nudnik and 173 more...
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Colors
Words for colors, including things so associated with a color that they can be used in reference to a color.
red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet, purple, navy, lavender, turquoise, chartreuse and 218 more...
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Browning words of cotton - often stic...
words that meander or have a partial dimension:
words that "catch on": peano curves: fractalitescotton, clue, filament, filaria, filum, filovirus, clod, cloud, peano curve, alveoli, nuance, noil and 122 more...
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color me mauve
color words
albescent, ecru, eggshell, mauve, taupe, ochre, ashen, goldenrod, gamboge, cream, saffron, mustard and 109 more...
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The Whiteness of the Whale
Words in Melville's "Moby Dick"
grapnels, spile, pea coffee, farrago, grego, bosky, bombazine, brevet, cenotaph, cupidity, kelson, obliquity and 164 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, G
grocer, gabanergic, gabardine, gabbro, gaffe, gneiss, grapple, grosgrain, grommet, gratify, gossamer, goofy and 194 more...
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Words that were new to me
but now they're not because I looked them up. In cases of polysemy or homography, *of course* it was the oddest meaning that stumped me. ;)
Procrustean bed, idem sonans, hob, backcap, quango, cheap-jack, pantechnicon, churrigueresco, chopfallen, maritorious, supererogation, catimini and 212 more...
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chromatica
cerulean, vermilion, sienna, terracotta, red, yellow, umber, green, blue, ultramarine, burnt sienna, cadmium yellow and 108 more...
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My Treasures
Well everyone's lists are favourites or pets or useful terms, no? These are mine.
mephitic, cagastric, wulm, scaevity, seplasiary, sevidical, sevous, soleated, soloecal, sputcheon, stagma, temerate and 173 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gamboge.
knitandpurl "The lessons begin with exhaustive lists of colours — Gamboge, Indian Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre — with notes on combining them and colour wheels to show how they relate to one another."
Nocturne: A Journey in Search of Moonlight by James Attlee, p 62 Nov 15, 2011
yarb "I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so..."
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 73 Jul 26, 2008