unguent

plural unguents · alternative archaic onguent

1. Any cream containing medicinal ingredients applied to the skin for therapeutic purposes.

   So she put a golden box into his hand, and directed him how to apply the perfumed unguent which it contained, and where to meet her at midnight.

   a. 1864, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Golden Fleece

   2 more examples

   "Alas!" said Syntax, "could I pop / Just now, upon a blacksmith's shop, / Whose cooling unguents would avail / To save poor Grizzle's ears and tail!"

   1809–1812, William Combe, Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque

   Thou knowest of old that my temper is somewhat choleric, and my tongue not greased with that unguent which oils the mouths of the lip-serving lords of the land.

   1890, Arthur Conan Doyle, A Literary Mosaic

alternative archaic onguent

1. not comparableTaking the form of a cream or ointment.

   In vials of ivory and coloured glass / Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes, / Unguent, powdered, or liquid— […]

   1922 October, T[homas] S[tearns] Eliot, “Part II. A Game of Chess.”, in The Waste Land, 1st book edition, New York, N.Y.: Boni and Liveright, published December 1922, →OCLC, page 18