ambergris

plural ambergrises · alternative amber-gris · alternative amber gris · alternative ambergreece · alternative amber-greece · alternative amber greece · alternative ambergrease · alternative amber-grease · alternative amber grease · alternative ambergreese · alternative amber-greese · alternative ambergrise · alternative amber-grise · alternative amber grise · alternative ambergreace · alternative amber-greace

1. uncountableusuallyA solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull gray to blackish color, formed within the intestines of the sperm whale and used in the production of perfumes.

   His dress was as it had been described, except that as he approached, Don Quixote saw a torn leather jerkin he was wearing had been tanned by ambergris, which led him to conclude that a person who wore such clothing could not be of low category.

   Part 1 published in 1605, Part 2 in 1615, translated in 2003, Miguel de Cervantes and translated by Edith Grossman, Don Quixote, page 182

   2 more examples

   Your onely way to make a good pomander, is this. Take an ownce of the pureſt garden mould, clenſed and ſteeped ſeauen daies in change of motherleſſe roſe water, then take the beſt Labdanum, Benioine, both Storaxes, amber greece, and Ciuet, and muſke, incorporate them together, and work them into what form you pleaſe; this, if your breath bee not to valiant, will make you ſmell as ſweete as my Ladies dogge.

   1607, [attributed to Thomas Tomkis], Lingva: Or The Combat of the Tongue, and the Five Senses for Superiority. A Pleasant Comœdie., London: Printed by G[eorge] Eld, for Simon Waterson, →OCLC, act IV, scene iii

   And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC

   Synonyms: amber, grey amber