Noun: alabaster
| Singular | alabaster |
| Plural | alabasters |
Sample Sentences
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Why ſhould a man whoſe bloud is warme within,
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Sit like his Grandſire, cut in Alabaſter? [c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 163, lines 89–90:]
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Nor was the flame dissevered from its ribbon
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But like a radiant fillet ran along
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So that fire seemed it behind alabaster. [1867, Dante Alghieri, “Paradiso”, in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, transl., The Divine Comedy, Canto XV, lines 22–23:]
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One of the striking relics found at the tomb, was a Canopic portrait head of Queen Tii, made entirely of alabaster except the eyes and eyebrows, which were inlaid lapis lazuli and osidian. [1915 May 15, “Egyptian Antiquities for Metropolitan”, in The New York Times (PDF), archived from the original on 14 Sep 2015:]
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Beautiful oviform vases and covers, jars and covers with flowers and foliage, Italian alabasters, copies of the antique, were ranged side by side with Chinese ginger jars and common preserve bottles of birds'eggs[…] [1883, W. H. Florio Hutchisson, Pen and Pencil Sketches: Being Reminiscences During Eighteen Years' Residence in Bengal, page 247:]
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His alabasters are certainly very estimable; but those to whom we owe them were not skilled virtuosi, and if they acquitted themselves of their task honourably, they only produced ordinary work. [2021 March 27, G. Maspero, Egyptian Art, Otbebookpublishing, →ISBN:]
Nouns inflected like alabaster
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle English alabastre, from Old French alabastre, from Latin alabaster (“box for perfumes or unguents”), from Ancient Greek ἀλάβαστρος (alábastros), from earlier ἀλάβαστος (alábastos, “vase without handles for storing perfumes”). This may further derive from Egyptian ꜥj-r-bꜣstjt (“vessel of the Egyptian goddess Bast”). The Latin suffix -aster is unrelated, but may have influenced the spelling of the borrowing from Ancient Greek (whence a direct loan could have been rendered as *alabastrus). See: Middle English Nouns '
alabastre', Latin Nouns '
alabaster', Ancient Greek Nouns '
ἀλάβαστρος'.
Verbs referencing "alabaster"
Finnish Nouns
alabasteri, Irish Nouns
albastar.